Vox Humana
by redwhistle
Summary: As the survivors prepare to leave the flooded library and begin traveling, 7 finally begins to confide in 9 about the past.  Post-movie 7x9.
1. Part 1

Author's Note: A large portion of this story was inspired by the DVD Director's Commentary track. With all those little clues and pieces of information about the characters and their pasts, I just couldn't resist trying to fit it all together. I had a blast writing it, and hope you enjoy reading. :D

Rating: There's a little violence later on, but what with the characters being dolls, it's not exactly bloody. There are also some mature themes in the later chapters, but, again... dolls. Nothing too explicit in either case.

* * *

Vox Humana - Part 1

**·**

**·**

It seemed quieter here, somehow, than it did anywhere else.

And that was saying something.

Five points, like spokes on a wheel. Now, alone this time, she walked a circle around them, and though the markers were burned and gone, she knew each place as well as she had when the ink had still been wet. Knew his place better than any of them. She stopped in front of it, just for a moment.

It had all happened so fast.

Not until she had been up in the room, not until she had looked down on the spokes from the safety of the window, had it occurred to her that, when they had come out, she had never heard their voices.

Surprising that she would think along those lines. After all, she was used to the quiet.

Overhead, the sky rumbled. Best to move on. She didn't want to get caught in it here; there was only one place nearby with anything resembling a roof – and one day in that room had been more than enough.

Besides, they were gone from this place. And walking circles wouldn't bring them back.

**·**

**·**

"Seven!"

She heard him a second before she saw him, emerging from the shadows behind the enormous book, into the candlelight. He ran to her, his smile so warm and full of relief that it took a moment for her to find her own voice. "Where are the twins?" she asked him, when she did.

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she realized her question was already being answered; over Nine's shoulder, she saw the lift descending, its passengers waving enthusiastically. It had barely come to a stop before Three and Four leaped from the platform and nearly bowled her over in greeting.

"We were worried about you," Nine said through his laughter, "out there in all of that. We were about to go out and start looking."

"Be glad you didn't." The twins circled her, excitedly plucking at the strap across her shoulder and the parcel it held in place on her back. She batted them playfully with her free hand. "Later," she told them.

Nine, whose gaze had never left her, now looked pointedly at the weapon she carried and the helmet once again in place on her head. "You found your things, at least. So, how was it? Other than the rain?"

"Quiet."

They looked at each other a moment.

"So, there's nothing – "

"Nothing." She managed a small smile. "So it looks like you've had your hands full around here."

The twins knew a cue when they heard one. Swooping in, they took Seven by the arm and half pulled her, half guided her, in a walking tour around their little world. Much like the larger one, it had seen better days. They showed her the dark places where water had seeped into the floor. Sodden treasures. Rusty shelves. "It's getting worse every day," said Nine. "We covered the top, but it just comes in from everywhere else."

"Yes, I saw that," she said, looking up to the top of the globe. "I would have come back sooner if I'd thought of it."

"There's not much you could have done. But now that you're back, we do have something we want to talk to you about."

She raised her eyebrows.

"Maybe you want to rest a while first? You must be – "

"I'm rested. What is it?"

Nine and the twins exchanged glances. "Come with us."

Back in the deep shadows behind the book, Four projected a sprawling image onto its cover. Seven recognized it as a map from before the war, of the city and its surrounding areas. Here was the library. The Sanctuary. The southern walls, and beyond them, the place where the towers would be if they had existed then. Or now. Emptiness between.

"How far from here have you traveled?" he asked.

"What?" To the twins: "You want to leave here?"

"We're thinking about it," said Nine. "You don't want to go?"

"Well – so, what? Find another library? I'm not sure there's another –"

The projected image changed. It looked oddly familiar. Abstractly shaped. Surrounded by blue.

Wait. What?

Sudden darkness as Four's projection switched off. Seven could just make out the twins' faces, which were as resolute as she had ever seen them.

"I know how it sounds," said Nine. "But it's a big world. There might be something else out there, something we never even thought of." He smiled a little uncertainly. "What do you think?"

There it was. Absolutely no concept of what he was saying. No idea of the enormity of what he was suggesting. Ready to go strolling off to parts unknown like it was nothing. Having no idea he couldn't do something – and then doing it.

What did she _think_?

"I think I'm ready when you are," she said.'

**·**

**·**

"I brought you something," Seven said a short time later, when they were alone. She removed her helmet so that she could slip the parcel off over her head, and as an afterthought removed her shield as well, setting them down on a book next to her. Nine's eyes followed her motions.

She held the bundle out to him by its strap; eventually he took his eyes off her long enough to examine it. Roundish, cloth-wrapped, bigger than his head. He frowned a little as he turned it in his hands, until suddenly he gave a comical little gasp of recognition and crouched down to work the knot loose.

He had it open in seconds. Folds of cloth fell away to reveal a bulb of gleaming glass, very much like the one he had carried not too long ago. "You found one," he laughed, holding it up to the light, his bright, eager expression almost unbearably familiar. "I've been wanting to go out looking, but – does it work?"

"I thought I'd leave that up to you."

"It looks like it will. I'll need one of those – things – and some wire, and – " his face clouded a bit. For a while he stared into the glass; what he saw there, she could only guess, though she imagined it would be much the same thing she had. When he looked at her again, his eyes were solemn. "Thank you," he said.

"It'll be helpful out there, especially when there's no moon."

"I'll get started – " He stopped, frowning at her. "What did you say?"

"What?"

"No moon?"

It was like he was from another world, sometimes. "Haven't you noticed how dark it's been at night?"

"Of course, but – I guess I never thought of it like that. I mean, we have candles in here. What do you do out there?"

"It depends." When he did not reply, but stood looking at her expectantly, she went on: "It's not always completely dark, even without a moon. If it's just going to be a short while, I can usually see enough to get me through. Sometimes I can't, and I have to stop for a while. But the dark moons, I'll usually spend indoors."

"Where? Here?"

"Sometimes." She watched as he placed the bulb gently down next to her armor pieces and sat beside them on the book. After a moment, she joined him. "So what is this thing the twins are doing?"

"They won't say. Ever since we got the idea to travel, they've been holed up there. I've barely seen them for the last few days."

"They do that."

"Actually, it was mostly their idea."

"What, traveling?"

He nodded. "I'd been thinking about leaving too, but I never told them. They came to me with it."

The place really was in bad shape. She looked up at the enormous book in the center of the room. The catalog, their pride and joy. Ropes attached to its pages led from it to the sections all around, tagged and categorized, where they housed their stores of knowledge. It was crinkled and stained now, where drops had landed on it from above. "It must be hard for them to see it like this."

"Maybe." He looked thoughtful.

"Thank you, by the way. For staying."

"It's fine. I've been doing a lot of..." his voice trailed off as she took his hand.

"What?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"You've been doing a lot of..."

"Oh... Reading. Looking at maps. There's so much to know."

"If you say so." She smiled and pointed upwards. "You're in good company, at least."

**·**

**·**

"Are you all right?"

Nine's voice. A hand on her arm. How long had he been standing there? She shook herself and blinked. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"I said, this is perfect." He nodded at the cart she stood beside. A wooden one with metal wheels, nearly as tall as she was, of the kind she noticed among the wreckage every now and then. They were usually in worse shape than this. It was a good find.

Together, they trundled it by its long wooden handle over to the place where he had piled some things to take back. Lots of metal pieces of various shapes and sizes. Rods. Fasteners. Wires. And –

"What's that?" She indicated the small metal disk he cradled in his hands. He was looking at it fondly.

"This is the important piece," he said. "It's what's going to make it light."

Oh! "A battery," she said without thinking.

A look of recognition came over his face. "That's it." Now he was looking at her in much the same way he had been looking at the battery a moment ago. "What do you know about these?"

"Not much. I've never even seen one like that."

"But you knew what it was called."

"Only because you said it makes things light."

"So you've done this before? Made lights?"

"No. I just watched," she said. This was what she got for opening her mouth.

"Who? Five?"

"He was there."

"Two, then."

She nodded.

"So what did they do? What kind of lights did they make?"

"I don't really remember," she said. "We should start heading back. It'll be dark soon, and there won't be a moon for most of the night."

He opened his mouth as if about to say something, but then seemed to change his mind. In the end, he simply turned the small disk in his hands again and then placed it gently in the cart.

Later, in the candlelit globe, she came to sit across from him as he sorted through some of the pieces he had collected. "What are you going to make?" she asked. "Something like you had before?"

"I'm not sure," he said. "I might come up with something better. What did you think of the maps?"

She shrugged. "They're maps."

"I couldn't tell much from them, either."

"I don't think there's any way to really know until we're out there. But are you sure you want to go south? There's more land to the east. Assuming we'll ever get that far." Crossing oceans probably wouldn't be a good idea.

"The twins, again. They think that's the first place we'll see plants, if they start coming back."

"Plants?"

He set aside the wire he had been holding and shifted closer to her, leaning forward excitedly. "They're these things that grow up out of the ground. They're alive, but they don't move or speak. They showed me drawings..." he trailed off. "What?"

"Nothing."

"They can explain it better than I can."

"I've seen them."

"The drawings?"

"No. Well, those, too."

He gasped. "You've seen plants? Live ones, from before? What were they like?"

"It's hard to say. A lot was going on at the time."

His face fell.

Oh, all right. "They were all different. Some were big and some were small... there were different colors, but most of them were green." Her hand went to the toggle on her front.

"What kind of colors?"

"White. Yellow." A lot of yellow. "And there were brown ones, with green tops. Those were the big ones." She thought a moment. "Trees."

"Right, right," he said, nodding vigorously, "that's where wood comes from. What else do you remember?"

"I don't know. Not much."

"Sorry."

"No, it's all right." She studied him for a moment. "I forget sometimes. How – "

"What?"

Young you are. "How little time you've been awake." Thirteen days, if she had counted correctly.

"Are you sure you're ready for this?" she went on. "Just because all the machines are gone doesn't mean it won't be dangerous. Things go flying out there when the winds kick up. Sometimes things just catch fire or explode for no reason. We still don't know what too much water will do to us." All that water. "And we really have no idea what else might be out there."

He didn't answer. A very strange expression was on his face. She went on: "Maybe you should wait. Maybe we can find another place, where the water doesn't come in, like the first room. And I can go on ahead, find a path for us – "

"No. I don't think that's – you don't need to do that. There's nothing out there we can't face."

"I'm not saying you can't face it, I'm just – "

" – trying to protect us. I know."

The metal pieces were suddenly far more interesting than they had been a moment ago. She picked one of them up, an odd one which consisted of two small pieces hinged together in a v-shape. When she squeezed them together, they sprang back open.

"You don't have to do that any more," he went on. "We want to be out there. Isn't that what you wanted?"

She had the words for some of the pieces. Others, she didn't. Like this one. It was sort of funny how that worked.

"There are only a few of us left. We shouldn't separate. We're stronger when we're – "

"All right," she said, a bit louder than she had meant to. She took a deep breath. "All right. I won't go."

Now it was Nine who became interested in the pieces again. He tinkered with them for a while as she watched. Again, she wondered what the twins were doing. Was all this planning really necessary? If they were all so determined to go, why didn't they just go?

"Where did you live?" Nine asked, out of nowhere.

"What?"

"You didn't live here. You didn't live with the others. Where did you live?"

What an odd question. "There were some places I had. They changed a lot."

"And that was – how long was it?"

"I don't know... they were all different. I had to let the beast find them every now and then, to keep throwing it off. The last one was the longest, I think." She had liked it.

"No, I mean, how long were you away? From the others?"

Oh. "I don't know."

"Maybe not exactly, but you must have some idea – "

"I told you. I never kept track." As she made to stand up, he dropped what he was holding and put his hand on her arm.

"Wait," he said. "Please."

She hesitated.

"Never mind. Forget I asked."

Did he think she was stupid? That she didn't know what he was really asking her? He had been dancing around that question ever since the burning – the only one, since she had known him, that he didn't seem to have the nerve to ask directly. She was still trying to work out whether or not that was a good thing. "It's just the way I am, all right?" she finally said. "I was different from them. It wasn't working any more."

He released her arm, at least having the decency to look abashed. "I didn't mean – "

"Of course you did. But I really don't know what you want me to tell you."

"You don't have to tell me anything."

"I know I don't. But at this rate I won't get any peace until I do."

"I didn't – "

"And it's kind of a long story."

He stopped, blinking at her. After a moment, he broke into a smile. "We have time."

Well.

That they did.

**·**

**·**

"Is this what you were looking for?" Seven asked. She rolled the large, heavy cylinder into the workshop and over to Two, who was in the process of arranging an assortment of pieces on his workbench. "There are lots of them not far from here."

"Oh my – yes, this is perfect! Wonderful!" Two laughed. He walked a circle around it, beaming, and bent to examine the connectors sticking out from the side.

A few moments later, Five found his way out from behind a large pile of newly-collected artifacts at the back of the shop. "Oh, this is that thing you've been talking about," he said, coming over and nudging it with his foot. "The... uh... "

"Battery," said Two, patting it fondly. "How many did you say there were?"

"I didn't," said Seven, "but about two dozen."

"Wonderful!" Two said again. "Here, help me with this." The three of them, lifting together, could not quite manage to hoist the thing upright. "Well, no matter. We'll have to roll it back out of here, anyway. Did you see anything out there?" he asked her, suddenly intent.

"All clear, for now."

"Good," he said, relaxing. "Now, there might still be some power left... let me see... " He scurried off to the back.

Seven leaned against the bench. "So, have you thought about it?" she asked Five, and was not the least bit surprised when he turned and made a point of busying himself with something.

"Uh... not really."

"You said you would." Whatever it was he was doing was apparently engrossing. When no answer was forthcoming, she went on, "I don't understand you. You'll go out collecting with Two."

"That's different."

"Why?"

"You know why. Besides, One says it's okay."

Of course. "How do you know he won't be okay with this?"

Again, Five suddenly became very absorbed in his work. It involved wires.

"You could handle it. It's not as hard as you'd think."

"Maybe not for you," he said, turning back around to face her. "You're... better at those things than we are."

"So what? You're a better collector than I am."

"I don't know about that," he said, smiling a little. "You made Two pretty happy just now."

"Exactly. And you see how long it took. Imagine what _you_ could find out there."

His expression immediately turned serious again. "Look... I can't, all right? I'm sorry. I'm... not good with those things. I'll make a noise, or bump into something, or... I don't know. Anyway, believe me, you're the only one he trusts to go out there and not lead it back."

Footsteps were coming down the path outside the workshop. Five hastily made to look busy again. Seven stayed right where she was. A few moments later, the curtains covering the entrance parted and One stepped in. "So," he said to her. "Now you no longer feel it necessary to come and report."

She raised her eyebrows at him.

"Now, now," called Two from the back, "she was just bringing me something she'd found."

"Ah, yes." He gave the cylinder a whack with the butt of his staff. "The... battery, I take it?"

"She says there are lots of them. I think this is going to work out fine."

One harrumphed a bit under his breath, then tapped Five on the shoulder. "Go and relieve the twins," he said. Five hesitated for a moment, but nodded and, with a parting glance at Seven, left the room.

"Well, then," One said, addressing her now. "What have you to report?"

"Some tracks about a half-mile west of here. They were a few days old."

"And this was when?"

"Yesterday."

"Hmm. Anything else?"

"Yes..."

He frowned a little. "Go on."

"I think Five should start coming with me."

"What? Out of the question."

"Why? He's young and able-bodied. He should be out there. And he should be learning to fight."

"I said, out of the question."

"Have you seen the size of that thing? We need to throw everything we have at it if we're going to – "

"Enough!" He held a hand up. "We're not going to. And _he's_ not going to."

"We need to do something," she said quietly.

"We _are_ doing something. We are protecting ourselves. We need to stay together, and we need to survive. These things are paramount. And as for you, you seem to be continually under the impression that all of us have the same abilities that you do."

"I don't think that, I just – "

"We all have talents. We all have something to contribute. Five's contributions lie elsewhere."

"He can learn. We can learn to do other – "

"The answer," One said curtly, striking his staff on the ground, "is no." Without another word, he turned and swept from the room, the little bell on his staff tinkling.

"I really hate that thing," she muttered to herself.

"What's that?" Two, who had just come back out, was dragging a tangled mass of wire with glass bulbs attached.

"Nothing," she said, pushing off from the bench and helping him drag the wires over next to it. She watched him pick through them for a while. Eventually he set them down, leaned heavily on the bench, and said, "What are you doing?"

"What?"

"What are you doing? You asked Five if he wanted to go scouting with you. You've asked him if he wanted to train with you. He's told you no. Now you're getting One involved. What are you trying to accomplish?"

Seven was taken aback for a moment, but recovered quickly. "I'm trying to do what has to be done. This thing is hunting us, and it's getting closer."

"You just said it was a half-mile from here. That's the same distance it was last time."

"Yes..." She frowned at him. Did he really not know this? "But we're at the center of the city. It's circling inward. Slowly, but it's following a pattern. Sooner or later, it'll find us, unless we do something."

He peered closely at her. "Why did you not tell this to One?"

"He knows."

"I see."

"Look," she said, "I have to go back for my weapon. I left it outside with the batteries."

"Do you mind if I come with you? I want to see them."

Though Two was, as always, good company, she did wish he walked a little faster. Her hands felt disturbingly empty. Fortunately, it was not very far, and it wasn't long before she found the bladed staff right where she left it, leaned against one of the broken crates. She took it up by its wooden handle, immensely relieved. "What do you think?"

He studied them for a while. Some had toppled over, having spilled from their container, but upright, they were taller than she was, and nearly as wide as they were tall. "I think we'll have a time moving them," he said, "but they look like they'll do nicely. They're in good condition."

"Well, I'm ready when you are."

"What?" He looked up at the afternoon sky. "No, no. Tomorrow morning. We'll get Five to help us. Maybe Eight as well, if One will spare him."

"Do you think he'll come this far out?"

"Of course, if One tells him to."

She frowned at him a moment, not having expected him to put it quite that way, before she understood. "No, I meant Five."

"Oh! Of – " he broke off, giving her the same look he had given her a short while ago in the shop. "Now, that's enough of that. You need to stop being so hard on him."

"I'm not being hard. I'm just trying to get him to – "

"I know what you're trying to do. And I know your intentions are good. But if he's going to come to that, it needs to be in his own time."

"Well, how much time is that going to be? All I ever hear about is what we can't do. Why are we going to let that thing stop us from living?"

"Because," said Two, "that thing _will_ stop us from living, if given the opportunity." He sighed. "You're young. Things are different for you."

"They don't have to be. And Five is young, too."

"Perhaps," Two sighed again. "Come on," he said, placing a hand on her shoulder, and together, they walked back to the cathedral.


	2. Part 2

Vox Humana - Part 2

**·**

**·**

Five kept darting nervous looks back to the clock tower, still clearly visible from where they were, as they set up the pry bar under the first battery. Two gave a satisfied nod when it toppled with little effort.

It wasn't long before they got a few more on their sides and ready to be rolled back to the cathedral; she and Five each took one, with Two following along holding her weapon, and in this way they were able to make several passes before the others needed to take a break.

"This is going to take us all day," Five said wearily, seating himself on the ground amongst their haul. Two wasn't faring much better.

"I'm getting Eight to help us," she said. "There's no reason why he can't."

Five said something she couldn't hear.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

Seven shook her head and left them there, making her way over to the ropes that held the bucket lift. Next to them was a smaller rope. She pulled on it, heard the small bell ringing overhead, and tipped her head all the way backward toward the platform high above. After a moment, just visible in the distant shadows, Eight's face appeared.

She waved.

He disappeared.

She waited. Minutes passed.

Fine, then.

Taking a running start, she jumped, caught hold of one of the pulley ropes, and began climbing up. Making use of whatever beams and ledges she could, she made her way quickly enough, resorting to the ropes again when there was too much empty space, and it wasn't long before, with one last heave, she had herself up on the platform.

Eight had apparently not been expecting this. He gaped at her as she stalked over to him. "Don't leave me standing there again," she said evenly, tilting her head back to look him in the face. "If you know what's good for you."

"What's going on over there?" came One's voice from the other side of the platform.

"Nothing," she called, not taking her eyes off Eight. "Now, come on," she said to him. "We need your help."

He crossed his arms, his expression turning stubborn. Time for a different tack.

"Thank you so much!" she said brightly. "I can't believe you just volunteered to spend all day helping us move those heavy things." She chucked him genially on the arm. "What would we do without you?"

As he blinked at her, One came sweeping over, cape fluttering behind him. "Hmm. Well, I suppose it's all right," he said a bit grudgingly. "But be back before dark. And you," he said, turning to her, "be sure to keep an eye out."

"Of course," she said.

Eight, who had finally caught up to what was going on, was shaking his head frantically at One. "No – what? No, " he said.

"Go on, it's all right," said One. "Go. Off with you."

As they got into the lift, Eight gave her a terrible, ferocious, furious scowl. She made it very clear that she was not impressed.

With another pair of hands, things went noticeably faster. Predictably enough, after he had gotten over his initial anger at being tricked, Eight seemed to be having a pretty good time. It wasn't hard to understand why.

Before the sun was too low in the sky, they had twenty-one batteries lined up in the main hall of the ruined cathedral, below the space in the roof where the aircraft was lodged – and with it, the engine that would power the generator. If they ever got it working. Seven, once more shouldering her weapon, ventured out to get the last battery with Eight. They walked in silence for a little bit.

"Thanks for your help today," she finally said.

He gave a casual shrug, as if to say, _don't worry about it_. They walked on a bit further. He was staring at her. Why was he staring at her?

No, not at her, she saw as she looked up at him. Her staff. "Hey," she said, hefting it by its wooden handle. "How come you don't have one of these?"

He shrugged again.

"Don't you want one?"

He seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then nodded.

"Well, you should have one. We all should," she said. He looked uncertain.

Later, in the candlelight of the workshop, she again leaned on the bench while Two and Five made some final tweaks to their strings of glass bulbs. The twins stood next to her, trying to stay out of the way – that is, until Two approached the battery, at which point they were no longer able to contain themselves. They scurried up behind him, peering curiously over his shoulders, flashing their lights as he fixed one end of the wire to the first connector.

"Here goes," said Two, and motioned for Five to do the honors.

Chuckling a little at the twins, Five approached with the other end of the wire. He seemed to fiddle with it for a moment – she couldn't quite see his hands – and then attached it to the other connector. All at once, the glass bulbs began glowing brightly, filling the room with light. "It worked!" he said excitedly, as Two laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "I can't believe it!"

The twins were beside themselves, swooping circles around the battery, tapping on the glass bulbs, taking note of all of it with their chattering beams. For once, she didn't blame them.

"Now we just have to get that engine working," said Two.

"What if we can't?"

"Then we're no worse off than we started, are we? But it would be a shame to let all of that fuel go to waste. In the meantime, of course, we can use what's left in these," he said, patting the battery again. He pulled the connection loose, and the room returned to its dim yellow glow. "We'll rig these bulbs up so only a few light at a time. That way we don't waste them. Seven, if you see any more of them out there, can you let me know?"

She nodded.

"When are you going back out?"

"In the morning," she said.

"What?" Five broke in. "Already?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Um... no reason." He exchanged a look with Two.

"What? What's the matter?" She looked from one to the other. To the twins, who looked strangely subdued all of a sudden.

After a moment, Five turned to her. "Uh..." Again he looked at Two, something seeming to pass between them. He shook his head. "Never mind."

"No, tell me. What's going on?"

Two came over to her, patted her hand, and smiled. "Nothing," he said. "It's nothing."

She departed at dawn. One saw her off.

**·**

**·**

Stay low. Stay quiet.

In a half-crouch, back pressed to a chunk of fallen stone, she listened. Waited.

There. Again.

In a moment, she would turn to look. Just long enough to get a glimpse, and then back.

Ready – now.

Her head darted out and back again. There it was. Just as huge and monstrous as she remembered, if not more so. It had not seen her.

What was it doing?

Unable to resist, she looked again. Longer this time. Its back was to her.

It was... digging?

No, not quite. Not digging.

Digging through. Searching.

Searching through the deep wreckage. Its long, ungainly limbs squeaked and rattled as it moved. As it pulled things, turned them out, looked inside them. As it hunched, face low to the ground, turning, pacing this way and that.

Searching.

In her half-crouch, eyes full of the tormentor, something inside her surged. Opened up.

She knew that she shouldn't. She knew this. That wasn't why she was here. And yet, out in the open now, silent on the teetering wreckage, she crept, weapon held aloft, the tooth of a savage creature poised to close upon its longed-for kill.

You will not find what you are looking for.

Surged. Blur of motion as she rushed. Leaped.

Wind in her face. Rushing.

Crack!

Metal on metal, a spark.

Again!

And from nowhere, swift as falling, a blow plowing into her like a wall. Falling, back and back, away. A snap of wood, the breath knocked from her.

A shadow closing. Gleaming metal. Glowing red eye, closing.

Claws in the earth, a second too late.

She ran.

**·**

**·**

"I'll need another weapon before I can head out again," she said, mostly as an afterthought. It was strange to be giving such news on a day like this, a rare sunny one that had the clock tower positively glowing with light.

"What did you say?" One, who had received her report somewhat more stoically than she had expected, now looked at her in disbelief.

She frowned. "Well, I'm not about to – "

"You cannot possibly think you're going back out there."

"What?"

"That's it. You've had your fun. Now it's gotten out of hand."

"_Fun?_"

"Yes, fun," he snapped. "Do you think I don't know? Do you think I don't know _you_? You were supposed to be tracking that beast, not engaging it!"

"I wasn't – "

"You were. I am well aware of your proclivities. I knew it was only a matter of time. And now I can no longer trust you to act in a reasonable fashion."

"But I didn't – "

"Enough! Do not make me out to be a fool! This may be nothing but a game to you, but to the rest of us – "

"What?"

" – it means our lives! Your recklessness will be the end of us all!"

They stared each other down. Seven struggled to control herself. "It wasn't recklessness," she said, much more calmly than she felt. "And that thing is getting closer. We can't just hide in here anymore. If we're going to keep it away, then we need to arm ourselves, we need to – "

"What _you_ need to do," said One, "is think about someone other than yourself. You need to settle down. You need to follow your orders."

She clenched her fists.

"And those orders are now to _stay inside these walls_. We'll keep watch from the tower."

"That won't be good enough to – " she stopped as One held a hand up. His expression was adamant. He wasn't listening. What was the point?

After a moment, One sighed, and his expression softened. "I know this is difficult for you," he said. "And you've done well. But things have changed. We simply can't risk having any more encounters with this menace." He placed a hand on her shoulder. "In time, you'll come to understand."

**·**

**·**

As it happened, he had been listening – somewhat. And now, he was making them listen. At great length. How could anyone possibly talk so much about anything? If he was trying to punish her, he was doing a very good job. More than a few times she found her mind wandering far away from the workroom, with only the occasional distant noise jerking her back to attention.

"But bear in mind – and I cannot stress this enough – " One finally said, looking pointedly at her, "that this is only to be in case of unforeseen circumstances. We are not to go looking for trouble."

"Of course," said Two. "Of course. We're doing the right thing. Now, you just leave everything to me."

One grunted and surveyed his surroundings with some disdain. "Fine." As he parted the curtains, he called over his shoulder, "I'll send Eight back down shortly." His footsteps echoed down the hall.

"Great," Five said, not quite under his breath.

Two patted his arm reassuringly, then bustled over to one the side tables. Before she could remark on this, Two called, "What happened to all those papers that were under here?"

"Take a guess," said Seven. "The twins were just complaining about it yesterday."

"Could you go and get some back from him? I need to draw up some plans."

She caught up with One just as he was approaching the bucket lift, where Eight awaited to take him back up to the tower. "So," he said to her as they settled back, "you must be pleased."

Anything she might have said at that point would have just gotten her into trouble. They rode the rest of the way in silence, save for the squeaking of the lift and the grunting of Eight at his efforts, turning the crank with his powerful arms and massive shoulders. Apparently that was his contribution.

Stepping out onto the platform of the clock tower, Seven found something surprising.

Books. Piles of them. What were they doing up here?

One gave her a lofty smirk, as if daring her to ask. Again she fought to control herself. Whatever was going on up here, it wasn't as important as what was going on in the workshop. She turned her back on him and strode purposefully over to the alcove nearby, a shadowed area formed in a hollowed-out section of wall. As she approached, she heard the familiar sounds of a tune being hummed – slightly off-key – and the scratching of pen on paper, but not until she was directly upon it could she make out the figure on its knees, hunched in the semidarkness, utterly intent on its work.

Would it kill him to light a candle?

"Six?" she said softly, not wanting to startle him.

At the sound of his name, his head jerked around to look at her. He blinked.

"We need some paper."

Six's expression brightened. He jumped up, handing a piece out to her happily.

"Blank paper."

Oh. His shoulders slumped. He pointed to the large pile of hoarded paper nearby.

"Thanks." She gathered a few sheets and rolled them up. As she made to leave, he again attempted to hand her his drawing. "It's very nice, but we really can't use it right now," she said as she walked past.

"The beast."

The sound of his voice brought her up short. He rarely spoke, and even more rarely said anything that made sense. She turned back around. "What about it?"

Saying nothing, just looking at her expectantly, he again held out his drawing. This time, she actually looked at it. Jagged ink splotches in the shape of –

Huh. This wasn't what he usually drew, was it? Behind him, in his shadowy alcove, a few other papers were pinned to the wall, all bearing similar swirling patterns, none of them anything like this one. It really did look like the creature, in an abstract sort of way.

"It's very nice," she said again, more sincerely this time. "You should pin it up there with the others."

Defeated, he dropped back to the floor, pulling one of the fresh sheets over to him. By the time she was three steps away the scratching had started up again.

Eight was waiting for her by the lift, smiling cheerfully.

"About time, isn't it?" she said. He nodded happily.

On the way down, he actually hummed. It was too bad Six couldn't hear him.

Coming back down the hall to the curtained-off workshop, they could hear Two talking animatedly to Five – "so here, depending on the design, you might have a lever that pulls it back, or a crank, like the one on the – oh, good, you've got it," he said, as they entered with the paper. Seven brought it over to the worktable, now cleared, save for a small scrap of paper with a hasty drawing scribbled in graphite. "I've got a few ideas I've got to get out." He tapped his head and smiled.

"Nothing that complicated for me," she smiled back. "I was fine with what I had."

"So..." Five said, seeming unable to stop himself, "you really fought it?" His voice, though timid, seemed loud in the suddenly quiet room. "You really fought the... thing?"

All eyes were on her. She nodded.

Two sat down on a nearby stool and passed a hand over his eyes.

"It wasn't that bad."

Five was shaking his head in awe. Eight just stared.

"It wasn't! It was out in the open, it couldn't get a hold of me. I led it through a..." she made some motions with her hands. "Something. A tube, but square. And I kept going in the wrong direction, so when it got free and started chasing me again, it would be away from here. I led it a long way off before I circled back around."

"And what happened to your weapon?"

Now everyone turned to Two, who was fixing her with a level gaze. "What?" she said.

"Your staff. What happened to it? How did it break?"

Leave it to Two. "I dropped it."

"You said it broke."

"I dropped it, and it broke." It _was_ the truth...

Silence stretched in the workshop.

Eventually, with a shake of his head, Two relented. "Well, then," he said, slapping his knees and standing up, "we'll just have to build you a better one, won't we?" And with that, they all made their way over to the rear of the workshop, and the large pile of bits and pieces that had not yet been sorted or put to use.

"We'll have to work with what we have, now that our outings have been put on hold," he went on, "but there are plenty of things we can use. Pull out anything you think might serve as a handle. Blades are over there." He pointed to a second, smaller pile in the corner. "Come to think of it, that might be our next project," he said to Five, "after the generator. They'll get dinged up lying around like that."

Together, they began sorting through the pile of salvage. Eight, in an unusually congenial mood, was quite helpful, moving the larger pieces aside so the rest could get to the smaller ones. Seven was determined to find something better than the pitiful wooden handle she had carried before. Of course it had seemed fine before it had been put to any real use, but now...

It didn't take long for Eight, once he had gone over to the blades, to find something he liked: an enormous knife, its blade alone longer than Seven was tall, with a splintering wooden handle. He hefted it and smiled appreciatively.

"Yes, that could work," Two said, sizing it up. "Not too heavy for you? You'll need a different handle on it, obviously. We'll see what we can do."

Eight, apparently mistaking Two's gestures as a request to hand him the knife, did so – and Two accepted before he realized what was happening. He toppled to the floor, pinned underneath it. Seven shook her head and, with some effort, hoisted the thing off of him.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," he insisted as Five helped him up. "Well, I think I'll definitely keep this one for you, then." Eight smiled jovially back at him and clapped him on the shoulder, nearly sending him to the floor again.

The search continued, the pile of rejects building up next to her. Too short. Too flimsy. Too stout. "How about this?" Five said, propping up a metal v-shaped object with a loop at one end. "We could take it apart."

"No, too long. And too square. So what are you looking for?" she asked.

"Oh, uh..." he looked embarrassed. "I'm going with something a little... different, actually."

This sounded interesting. "Like what?"

"You'll see. Two and I are going to build it."

"I can't wait." As he reached back into the pile, shifting aside a wooden beam, something caught her eye. It was a flared triangular point that looked like an arrow. She took hold of it and pulled. "Here, hold that up for me," she said to him.

With Five taking some weight off the beam, she was able to carefully extract the object from the pile, a long, black, sturdy piece of metal, almost as tall as she was. It was very interestingly shaped. Sort of flattish, narrowest at the center, flaring out into a slightly wider, looped base at the bottom, and the arrow-point at the top. Very much like a spear. Right below the arrow was a pointed crosspiece with a small hole in the center. She hefted it. A little bottom-heavy, but strong and light enough, and slim enough to get a good grip on.

Contemplating this, she started a little when she felt a hand on her arm. Two had come over and was peering at her find with growing excitement. "Wait," he said, patting her arm. "Wait right there. Don't move!" he called, searching among the blades now strewn haphazardly across the floor. She exchanged a look with Five.

"Ah! Here!" Two bustled back over with a knife blade almost the length of her arm, longer than the one she'd carried before, from which the handle had already been stripped. "Now, hold it up," he told her, indicating the metal piece. "Straight up, like – good. Five, hand me that – no, that longer one, right there." As they watched, he lined up the hole in the tang of the blade with the hole in the crosspiece, and lashed the two pieces together tightly with the twine he had taken from Five. He stepped back and surveyed the result.

It was beautiful. She took it in her hands. Nice and balanced now, with the addition of the blade, and a delightful spiky effect where the points of the arrow and crosspiece stuck out. "It's perfect," she said.

"And right here," said Two, indicating the hole, "we'll put a bolt to reinforce it." He gave her a meaningful look. "It'll take quite a bit of punishment."

Yes. It would.

**·**

**·**

Night, in the watchtower.

If there was a point to pretending she could see anything through a grainy lens under a half-moon, she didn't know what it was. Even during the day it was all but useless.

This couldn't possibly go on for much longer. Not knowing where it was or what it was doing had to be taking its toll on him. He would have to realize, however grudgingly, that the risks taken to get the information were not nearly as great as the risks of not having it. But how much longer would it take?

Again, to pass the time, she turned to her new companion. Swung it experimentally. Felt its weight in her hands. And for a moment, as she leaped from the spyglass pedestal and brought its blade down on an imaginary neck, she felt a ghost of the glorious surge that had taken her in the ruins.

How much longer?

Three and Four came to relieve her at dawn. The twins looked uncharacteristically melancholy as they climbed up onto the pedestal; she wondered about that, but stayed with them a while in companionable silence as they took turns every few minutes at the glass. It was simple with them. Easy.

As she made to leave, about to seat herself on the lift that would take her back down, a thought struck her. She went back over to the twins, who were staring out into the distance. "Hey," she said.

They turned to her.

"Are you... helping One with something?"

They exchanged a look, clearly confused, and shook their heads.

"Aren't those your books down there in the clock tower?"

Those melancholy faces again. They nodded.

In that moment, several things clicked into place. Now that she thought about it, she had remembered hearing the lift going up and down a few times when One had been briefing them in the workroom.

A strange calm came over her. "What happened?" she asked.


	3. Part 3

Vox Humana - Part 3

**·**

**·**

The sun was in the early afternoon sky when Five called up for the lift. Seven sat on it, flanked by the twins, and lowered it down.

He was surprised to see her. "What are you still doing up here?" he asked.

She did not smile. She did not even look at him. She walked right past without a word. Behind her, she could feel his gaze following in confusion.

And there was another gaze as well. One was standing in the center of the platform, watching her. She did not look at him, either. If she looked at him, it would all be over. If she looked at him, it would end that way, and that was not the way she wanted to end it, even now. Best to save it for where it really belonged.

Eight was waiting in the bucket lift. Him, she looked at. Stared at, as she climbed in with the twins. He looked back at her, paralyzed for a few moments, until he finally turned and started the descent. On his back was the knife she had seen in the workroom, finished now with a new handle. What was holding it on him? Oh. A magnet, it looked like, on some type of harness. Interesting. Leave it to Two.

She gripped her weapon more tightly.

At the bottom, the twins scurried off the lift and waited a short distance away. Hesitantly, Eight twisted and looked over his shoulder at her, and their eyes locked once again. They stood like that for a long moment, his massive form almost seeming to shrink under her gaze.

Coward.

Not taking her eyes from him, she stepped backward off the lift. Slammed the door shut. Again, he was the one that turned from her, and she kept her eyes still on him as he rose back upwards toward the platform.

Seven escorted the twins back to their alcove, under an archway not far from the workshop, and took their hands. "I'm going, now," she said. "This will all be over soon." In reply, they gave a single brisk nod, in unison, wishing her luck.

Calmly, she marched down the ruined path to the exit, her weapon held across her. Weight in her hands, like ballast.

So he thought this was a game to her? Well, then. She would play.

And she would win.

**·**

**·**

"So what was he doing?" asked Nine. "What did they tell you?"

"He took their books away," she said. "They'd been collecting them for a while. Some of them had already been there, in the cathedral. Some were ones the others and I had brought for them. They were always too timid to leave the place themselves."

"Were they getting close to something? Some information he didn't want them to have?"

"I have no idea. Maybe he just figured they would, eventually. But I didn't know anything about that at the time. All I knew was that he was suddenly acting like a tyrant instead of a leader. You have to understand something. We all followed him because we wanted to. We trusted him. Up until that point, I had never even thought to question why. Even when I was angry with him, I still went along with him, because I assumed he was looking out for all of them, just like I was.

"But gradually, things had started changing," she went on. "Little things, little ways that he would threaten and intimidate. He never hurt any of them. But he was tightening his grip. Finding ways to control them, in any way he could. Of course, he didn't do those kinds of things when I was around. He knew he couldn't intimidate me, and that I wouldn't tolerate him doing that to the others. And they never told me, because they were afraid of what I'd do if I found out."

"But that doesn't make any sense," said Nine. "If he could only control them when you weren't around, why would he try to make you stay?"

"I'm getting to that," she said.

**·**

**·**

Night. Far from the watchtower. But not far enough.

The moon, almost full now, set the skull-face glowing almost white. Glinted faintly in the cruel blades upon its back. From her perch on the ledge of a crumbling building, she saw them: the rhythmic hunching of its shoulders, the ghastly glow of its eye.

The faint noises reached her again. Squeak and rattle. That was her advantage, and would be its undoing. At her side, sound and sturdy, her companion was as ready as she was.

Easy, now. Be patient. Wait for an opening.

She followed it, on silent feet, from her position high above. From perch to perch, jumping, landing silently: on a teetering lintel, a tightly-strung wire, a fallen beam. The remains of a wall, its iron supports still peeking out from where the top had been blown away. Following along, silently.

Below, the ghastly glow, the squeak and rattle, moved closer. And finally stopped. In the moonlight, she caught the faint gleam of its claw as it reached out and turned over a sheet of twisted metal. As it bent, to look into the gap it had uncovered.

Bent. The neck, exposed and vulnerable, no longer imaginary, between skull and shoulder.

Now.

Raising her blade high above her, she jumped. Brought it down. And in that instant, she knew it was hers.

In the next, she knew it was lost.

**·**

**·**

There had to be something she could do. Some way to fix this. Two had dozens of needles in his workshop, in all sizes – where did he get them? Where should she look? And of course, the most pertinent question of all – if she found one, what would she do with it? Her other arm simply wouldn't reach. She tried contorting her upper body in every way she could think of, but she couldn't get to it, not even to grasp the loose threads so they would stop unraveling. She couldn't even get a look at it.

One stitch – _one_ – between her and victory. Between her and everything being all right.

How could she go back like this?

Briefly, she considered living a life alone in the wilderness. It wouldn't be so bad. She was fine with being alone. The pain would have to stop eventually, wouldn't it? Even if she couldn't fix the back of the seam, she could reinforce the front so it wouldn't come completely apart. And if she never regained the full use of her arm, so what? She had another one. It wasn't as if there were a giant, malevolent creature roaming the countryside looking to tear her limb-from-unraveling-limb.

She sighed. At least she still had her weapon.

Maybe she could get in, get to the workshop, and get Two to fix her without anyone else knowing. Then she could head back out and try again. As many times as it took.

The journey back to the cathedral was a long one.

**·**

**·**

When she parted the curtains, she found Two and Five in the light of their glowing bulbs, surrounded by what looked to be gears and bolts.

"Seven!" they said almost in unison, rushing over to her as she came through.

She motioned for them to be quiet.

"Where have you –" Two's frantic whisper broke off at the sight of her right arm. He gasped. "You're hurt."

"It's not that bad," she said in an urgent whisper. "But I need you to fix it before I can go try again."

"What – try what again?"

She gave him what she hoped was a meaningful look. It apparently was, because he got it immediately.

Five got it a second later. "You – it did this to you?"

"Not exactly," she said. "Look, I can't explain it right now."

"What?"

"Just – " she shook her head and turned to Two. "Could you fix me, please? I need to get back out there."

He looked at her for a very long moment, his expression inscrutable. Then, without a word, he dragged a stool next to the worktable and motioned for her to sit.

"Thank you," she said.

With her back to them, they began examining the wound. Or rather, Two began examining it, instructing Five in a low voice as he went. "It's just a simple seam repair," he said. "None of the fabric has been damaged. See here? It was just one place where it was cut and started to unravel."

"Get me one of those medium-sized needles," he went on, "and that dark thread, right there. And we'll need shears. The good ones."

As Five wove his way around the cluttered shop, gathering the supplies, Two patted her uninjured shoulder.

"Thank you," she said again.

He sighed. "I wish I had it in me not to do this," he said to her. "I have a feeling you might be better off."

There wasn't much she could say to that.

The pain began subsiding almost immediately as Two set to work, instructing Five in the finer points as he went. "When you're doing this type of stitch, it's very important to keep proper tension on the thread. If it's too tight, it will pucker and won't be flexible enough. If it's too loose, it won't hold. I'm going to have you practice later," he said. "It's a good skill to have."

"Now," Two continued, patting her again, "how did this happen?"

She took a deep breath. Might as well. "I – cut myself on its back."

"What?" Five exclaimed.

"Shhh!" She swatted at him with her good arm.

Two grabbed it and pulled it firmly back to her side. "Stop moving," he said.

"Sorry," Five said to them. "What?" he said again, more quietly.

"I had it," Seven went on. "I was right above it, and I jumped down, and – "

"What?" he prompted her.

"It moved."

Silence, as they waited for her to continue.

"It has these... knives, sticking out of its back. At the last second, it moved, and I cut myself when I landed." Though she knew it wasn't possible, she swore she could hear Two shaking his head.

"So... what did you do?" Five asked.

_Lurching. Bent back, lurching. Falling, tumbling down and down. _ "What could I do? I had to run."

"No, but... how did you get away?" He had come around to stand in front of her, a strange expression on his face.

She frowned. "I just told you."

"No, I mean... " he trailed off, his hand going up toward his face. Toward the patch that covered the place where his left eye had been. Stopping before it quite got there. "Never mind."

Oh.

"It – wasn't like that," she told him. "This wasn't – it was just my arm."

Five said nothing. For a moment he seemed to be somewhere private and far away. Then he shook himself and looked over at Two, who had been gesturing to him.

"Come here," Two said gently. "I want to show you how to make the knot." Looking relieved, Five walked back around behind her. "You want it to be on the inside, see? Like this."

Seven felt a tugging sensation as the last of the pain faded. Heard the snip of the shears. "How does that feel?" Two asked her. She stood up and began flexing her arm, rotating it in all directions.

"Like it never happened. Thank you," she smiled, and made to walk past.

"Stop," Two said, holding up a hand. He pointed to the stool. "Sit. Please."

She hesitated. Looked at her weapon, leaning against a side table.

"That creature's not going anywhere," he said, "more's the pity. Now, sit."

She sat.

"You must do something for me." He pulled up another stool and sat across from her, looking at her very seriously. "You must go up and speak with One."

Without a word, she stood up and headed for the curtains.

"Wait! Wait. Please, hear me out. Please," he said again, running after her and taking her arm just as her hand closed around her weapon.

"I have nothing to say to him."

"Listen to me. You can't do things this way."

"What way?" she asked, rounding on him. "You're telling me you're all right with this? Him running your lives for you? You're all right with living in fear?"

"It's not about any of that."

"Then what is it about?"

"It's about all of us standing together. Standing united," he said. "It's the only way we have a chance."

"You don't understand. He _wants_ this thing out there."

"That's not true. _Listen_." Two was surprisingly strong when he was determined. Her attempts to pull her arm away were unsuccessful. "He wants to protect us. He wants to lead us. If you want to do things differently than he does, then talk to him, reason with him."

"Or," she said, prying at his fingers, "I could just kill the thing and be done with – "

"Stop!" he yelled. He was breathing heavily. Behind him, Five looked as stunned as she was. It was the first time she had ever heard Two raise his voice. "Stop," he said again, far more quietly. He slumped forward, leaning his head against her shoulder. "Please."

Seven closed her eyes. All was quiet. The shout had not alerted them above. "I still don't know how you think it will help."

"Do it for me."

All was quiet.

"All right," she finally said. "For you. But I'm taking this," she went on, mostly to herself, as her hand closed again around her weapon. Two shook his head a little as he released her.

Something occurred to her then. "Where's yours?" she said to Five. "You said you were building one."

"Oh! Yeah. Yeah, it's here."

"Can I see it?"

"Uh..." he glanced uncertainly over at Two. "Sure." Turning a circle, he spotted the object and went to retrieve it. Two gave her a look that clearly said, _you're stalling_. "Here," said Five. In his hands he held a very strange-looking device. There were springs.

"What is it?" she frowned. She set her own down again and went to look.

"It's a crossbow. Well, sort of," he said. "There's no bow. But it works the same way. See, you put a bolt in here – " and here he took a large needle and inserted it through a ring at the top – "and draw this back, and..." He took aim and pressed something. The needle shot out and stuck, quivering, in the opposite wall.

Five grinned, looking both pleased and embarrassed, as she clapped him on the shoulder. "Look at you!" she laughed. "I knew you could do it."

"Well, it's just for emergencies," he smiled, with a little half-shrug.

It may have been a bit strange and unwieldy and far too complicated-looking – but a weapon was a weapon. "Can I try?"

Was it her imagination, or did he seem a little taller as he handed it over? "Okay, you hold it in one hand, like this, and you put in the bolt, right through there." It took her a few tries to get it right. "Now, take hold of that and pull it back until it catches." The device made a satisfying click.

"Now aim," he went on, "and when you're ready, press this, here." Raising it up, she peered through the ring along the length of the needle and fired.

"Ha!" she said. "Nice!"

"And we have these, too," he said, showing her a pronged hook with rope attached. "For climbing."

She looked over at Two, who had been watching the lesson with some amusement. "What about you? What do you have?"

"Something more like yours. Anything I can see well enough to hit is going to be right in front of me."

"It's not a bad way to do things."

"Yes, well. I suppose we'll find out when I go marching into battle," he laughed.

Maybe it was the way he said it. Maybe it was the way Five stood, straight-backed and proud, as she handed back his weapon. But as she looked at the two of them, an idea began forming. Possibly a very bad one.

"Are you ready now?" Two asked her.

She nodded. As she'd ever be.

**·**

**·**

As a concession, she pulled the bell rope and waited for Eight's face to appear. She was going to try. Later – much later – it would come to her that she had never expected to succeed – and maybe, never even wanted to – and that perhaps that had made the difference in the end. But standing there, peering up into the shadowy distance, she said it to herself again: she was going to try.

Eight's reaction on seeing her was not at all what she had expected. There was no sniggering, no anticipation of the scolding he would surely see as inevitable; instead he just looked at her very seriously, nodded once, and turned back around to operate the lift. At any other time she might have been curious, perhaps even appreciative, but as it was her mind was already strained from her efforts to prepare herself. Diplomacy was, to put it mildly, not her strong suit, and an unfamiliar – and very unwelcome – sensation built steadily inside her as the lift climbed closer to the platform.

One awaited her at the top, crook in his hand, the ridiculous jeweled clasp of his cape glinting in the pale morning light. And there had been a new addition in her absence – a hat of some sort, tall and cylindrical, ornamented with a metal disk that bore his numeral. "So," he said. "Back from our little adventure?"

"I need to talk to you," she said.

"Of course you do," he said, smiling blandly. "You must be quite anxious to tell the tale."

She frowned at him. "What – "

"The tale! Of how you brought down the great beast, single-handedly, against all possible odds? Naturally you'd want to share." He tapped the butt of his staff against the floor. "Come, then, let's hear it!"

Any reserves of patience she still possessed were rapidly dwindling. "I need to talk to you," she said again.

"And so you are. But it couldn't possibly be that you failed? That no astounding tales of victory will be forthcoming?

"_Listen_ to me – "

"No," he said, all traces of flippancy vanishing from his tone. "It is you who will listen. You will not do this again."

"No," she said. "I won't."

"And further – "

"_You_ should do it." He was clearly taken aback by this statement, and she went on: "You can lead us. We can do this. All of us will go. Six, the twins, everyone. Half of us already have weapons, and we have enough supplies for the rest. There are eight of us. Together we can take this thing."

His expression, which had grown harder by degrees as she had spoken, was now like stone. "That's enough," he said, a bit hoarsely.

"If you ask them to go, then they'll go. They trust you – "

"That's enough – "

"They can do it," she pressed on. "We can do it. If we stand together, we have a chance – "

"That's enough!" One shouted, slamming his staff down with a bang hard enough to echo in the rafters. Eight, who had moved to stand behind him, flinched. "That is the last time," he went on, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper, "that you will ever suggest such a thing."

"We can't go on like this. We can't go on living in fear – "

"I will determine what we – "

"If you want to lead us, then _lead_ us. Lead us into battle. What are you afraid of? If we die, then we die fighting, not waiting around for – "

"What is it you fail to understand? You think the twins are set to die in battle, that Six is a soldier? Just because you have no regard for your own life – "

"That isn't true – "

" – doesn't mean the rest of us are prepared to throw ours away – "

"You already are!" she shouted. "You're already throwing them away!"

A heavy silence settled on the platform. For a few moments, neither of them moved or spoke. Six, who had stayed out of sight until this point, now peeked his head timidly out from his alcove.

"Of course," One said. "I must have forgotten. Those of us who don't follow your path are wasting our lives."

"That's not what I said – "

"Isn't it? You've made your feelings quite clear in the past."

She closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. "That thing will find its way here. It's only a matter of time. We can't take it in close quarters. Our best chance is to – "

"The rest of us feel differently."

"The rest of you are wrong!"

"And you know what's best for all of us, do you?"

"I know that – "

"You know nothing. You're a selfish, obstinate child who won't rest until – "

"I know that we won't have a chance – "

" – every last one of us is dead!"

" – unless we fight!" She stepped around him to Eight, who did not look happy to be suddenly included in the conversation. "What about you?" she said. "You wanted a weapon, and now you have one. Is this really what you wanted to do with it? Why not use it the way you were meant to – "

"How dare you," said One, whirling around to face them. "Leave him out of this!"

"Why? He'll follow you! They'll follow you. And," she said, planting her weapon, "I'll follow you. I'll do whatever you say. Tell me what to do and I'll do it."

"And what cause would I have to believe that? When have you ever followed my orders, except for when – "

"I've always followed them – "

"You've followed them when it's suited you to follow them. Otherwise you simply act as though you haven't heard them."

"This is different."

"Yes? Well, forgive me for having my doubts. I've had enough of this nonsense," he said, sweeping past her. "Eight, take her back down, and see that she stays there."

Eight attempted to take hold of her, but she sidestepped him easily and pursued One across the platform.

"So it's true, then."

He kept walking. "I said, I've had enough."

"You do want it out there."

That stopped him. When he turned back to her, a very strange look was on his face. "What did you say?" he asked, in a voice barely above a whisper.

"I know what's been going on here. Others may be willing to make excuses for you, but I'm not. I know what you're trying to do."

"Really?" he said, narrowing his eyes at her. "And what might that be?"

"You want everyone afraid, so you can control them. That's why you don't want to fight. You don't want to be rid of it. Your worst fear is that I'll manage to kill that thing. That's why you're trying to keep me here. That's why you gave permission for the weapons. You think you can humor me, and at the same time arm your enforcer over there. You think that eventually, you'll be able to control me, too. And once you do that, there won't be anyone left who'll challenge you."

For a moment, One said nothing. Then he closed his eyes, nodding. "Yes," he said, very quietly, "of course. I'm to blame for everything. You vastly prefer that to the idea that there might be a danger we are unable to face. That the others _want_ to be here. That they want to be protected."

"You're not protecting them, you're imprisoning them. You've convinced them there isn't any other way."

"I'm not forcing them to be here. They're here because they choose to be. If they don't like the way things are done, they can leave. Permanently. And so," he said, now looking her right in the eye, "can you. Now get out of my sight."

She did.

**·**

**·**

Back through the curtains. There could be no doubt, from Two and Five's faces, that some of the goings-on above had reached them.

"Well?" she said. "What's it going to be?"

"What happened up there?" said Two. "We heard shouting."

"Are you coming, or not?"

"Coming where?"

"You said we should stand together, so let's stand together. Let's go get this thing so we can end it."

"What are you talking about – what happened up there? What did you say to him?"

"You have weapons. Both of you. I know you can do this." She turned now to Five, who recoiled from her a bit. "You're strong. Show him that you're strong. Show him you don't need him."

"Wait," said Two. "Are you... suggesting that we go fight this creature? Right now?"

Five gasped.

"Listen to me," she said to them. "This thing is coming. We're in danger here, and One won't listen to reason. We have to go and fight. It's our best chance."

They stared at her. Five wrung his hands.

"Once it's dead, this will all be over," she went on, pleading with them. "You'll be able to do anything you want! You won't have to live in fear – "

"Seven – "

"All it takes is a little courage."

"That's not all it takes," said Two, "and there are other kinds of courage."

Looking from one to the other, in that moment, she also took in the full picture of the workshop. Glowing bulbs strung overhead. Battery in the corner. Parts – engine parts, she now realized – laid out neatly on the floor. A world of trash and treasures. "So – so you _are_ all right with this. You're all right with being prisoners."

"Seven. Calm down. Tell me what happened." He made to take her arm again, but she jerked it back and, without another word, turned and fled.

"This is my fault," she heard Two say, as she parted the curtains for the last time.


	4. Part 4

Note: I hadn't realized how long Part 4 was until I uploaded it here. It's almost 7,000 words! So for easier reading, I've split it in two. The two halves will appear as "Part 4" and "Part 4 continued" in the Table of Contents. Happy reading! :D

* * *

Vox Humana – Part 4

**·**

**·**

"But I still don't understand," said Nine. "First he was trying to keep you there, and then he was telling you to leave?"

"He wasn't telling me to leave," she said. "He was daring me to. He thought that, faced with the choice, I would stay and fall in line. He thought wrong."

Nine seemed to consider this. After a moment, he said, "So that was it. You never went back there again."

"No, I went back one more time."

"But you just said – "

"The twins," said Seven. "I went back for them."

Understanding came over his face.

"The others all had the things they wanted. Two and Five had their workshop. Six seemed happy as long as he had paper and ink. One got to be the leader. Eight got to be – I don't know. Whatever he got out of doing what he did. I think he just wanted to be important. But the twins..."

"They had theirs taken away."

She nodded. "I don't think he realized exactly what he was taking from them. It's not just books. What they really want is knowledge, and he wasn't giving them a way to seek that out anymore. And I knew how unhappy they were. I knew if I could find a place they thought was safe, where they could do what they wanted to do, they would come with me."

"It's a nice place."

"_Was_ a nice place."

"No, it still is," he said. "But I think, what you said about them seeking knowledge – I think that's really why they want to leave here. They've had plenty of time with books and things, but now they want other kinds of knowledge. And they want to do something with what they've learned."

"I think you're right," she smiled.

"And you know what else? You weren't that different. You said each of them had something that they wanted."

"I know what I said."

"Well, you were the same, weren't you? You had something that you wanted to do. Just like the others. Just like the twins."

What was he getting at?

"Can I ask you something?" he went on. He looked at her now, very carefully. She knew that expression. Unbearably familiar. "Why didn't you just tell them what you were doing? Why did you let them think that you were lost?"

Time seemed to slow down. Seemed to stop. She couldn't even look away from him.

"Did you really believe what you said to One?" he pressed on. "About the beast?"

What was she doing? Why was she even sitting here? This was the most she had spoken at one time in more years than she could count – possibly ever. What on earth had made her think it was a good idea?

"Yes," she said, standing up. "I did. And I still do."

And she was off. Again.

**·**

**·**

Beneath the cloud cover, the sky was just beginning to lighten. It was more than she needed. If pressed, she could probably navigate this part of the ruins with her eyes closed.

There was no problem the wind in your face couldn't solve. That the movement of your limbs, the pounding of your feet against the ground couldn't solve.

Except for...

As if on cue, the first drops began to fall. Of course. Without pausing, she changed direction. Her place was nearby. It had a roof.

How beautiful, how wonderful these drops had first seemed. Looking up at them, watching them fall, she remembered the feeling they had brought, the feeling that something was coming back, that something was being given in exchange, after so much loss.

Now she just felt wet.

There, just ahead. Never had that splintering doorway, those crumbling stairs seemed so welcome. She made it right before the sky opened up, leaving the sound of the pounding drops behind her as she retreated into the safety of the building.

This was shaping up to be a problem.

Were they really going to do this? Were they really going to head out into the flat emptiness, to places where there were no buildings, no debris, no shelter at all? How could she let them? How could she bring them out into this? Into dangers she couldn't protect them from, dangers that couldn't be fought with a blade?

Yet how could she deny them, if that was what they really wanted? What was life without risk? She had never seen the twins this way, so resolute, so ready to take on the world. Something had changed in them. And Nine – well.

Nine.

It was her own fault. She should have known better, especially after everything that had just happened. Awake for little more than a day, he was already uncovering secrets buried for years. Just from talking. Just from listening. Why should hers have proved any more difficult for him?

That way he had looked at her. Right to her center, like a well-aimed dart. There could be no doubt.

So now he knew. Now he saw. Now he saw _her_. Surprisingly, it hadn't seemed to upset him all that much. Not that she had stuck around long enough to really tell. But it hadn't stopped him from calling, calling after her, calling for her to come back...

In the dark, she easily found the supply of matches, the candle she had set up from the last time she had been here. Shadows leaped across the walls as she lit it. This was a good place. It was dry in here, and the light didn't reach the outside, where it would have alerted the –

Well. Didn't have to worry about _that_ anymore.

A few of her projects were still here. She picked up the new snare she had been working on, almost finished, only needing a second weight attached to the other end. These had proved invaluable over the years. Without them, she probably wouldn't have been able to keep it up for so long.

Without them, she probably would have had to kill it.

Had Two come to the same conclusion? He and Nine were so much alike. Always getting to the center of things, always wanting to know. Always knowing just what to ask.

Was it really so bad? So she had said too much. In a strange way, it was a relief. Maybe that was what so many years of silence got you. Maybe there were a certain number of words you had to say, and if you went too long without saying them, they all came out at once. And took other things with them.

So now the worst was over. He already knew. What was the point of hiding anything else from him? Might as well finish what she started, right? There were other kinds of courage, as Two had once said.

_Come back._

If Seven were honest with herself – and she tried to avoid it whenever possible – she would have to admit that, though she may have been the boldest of all of them, she was hardly the bravest.

But maybe she could be.

**·**

**·**

Courage, then.

Still some light left in the day, as she approached the library's front entrance. Her shadow was long next to her on the wide avenue of stone; not so fierce now, with its little round head and empty hands.

At the top of the cascade of books that guarded the threshold, she surveyed the damage. It was a little shocking. Much of the water had apparently dried up before she had last arrived. Fortunately, there were still some drier patches, and between them and the piled-up wreckage and books she managed to make it to the globe without soaking herself.

They were indeed inside, as she knew they would be; despite the water's slow damaging of the globe's structure and contents, it was still dry enough to be comfortable. Now that the top was covered over, they needed to work in candlelight, even during the day, and working they were: Nine with his pieces of wire and metal, the twins on some kind of drawing. The pair paused only long enough to wave to her and went right back to what they were doing.

Nine did not. But neither did he run to greet her as he had done before; instead he just looked at her, his expression inscrutable, until she held out her hand. "Come with me," she said.

He did.

There was a section that was raised from the ground, a dais on top of some wide stone stairs, where she had sat the night before with the maps. The ceiling overhead was intact, and it would be dry. The going was a little treacherous now, and she had to help him in a few places. From the look on his face, he didn't mind. Neither did she.

The maps were still there, a bit puckered now with the occasional drop that the wind had carried. On top of the pile was the last one she had examined, purely out of curiosity: the old map of the city, the very same one which Four had projected the night of her return. Twice the span of her arms in length, it was one of the smaller ones. She stepped onto it, within the circle of walls, looking down as though from a great height, searching the faded lines of the ancient city.

"There," she said. She pointed to the map.

Nine walked over, and though the angle of her head did not allow her to see him, she knew that his eyes were on her and did not stray until he was finally next to her and looking down.

"That's where I lived. The last place."

"It's not far from here," he said.

"No, it isn't."

"So you were that close to them, all that time?"

"Not all the time. I wasn't there much. I was all over," she said, gesturing to the map, "tracking it. Watching it. Leading it around. You were right, you know. It was what I wanted."

"Of course it was. You were protecting them."

Of course. Protecting them. "It caught me once. Like Two. Did you know that?"

"What? When?"

"A long time ago. Maybe a year or so after I brought the twins here. That's how I got this." She twisted at the waist, giving him a partial view of her scarred back. His eyes lingered over it for a moment before returning to her face.

"How did you – what happened?"

"It's a long story," she said, smiling despite herself. "And I come off even worse in it than the last one."

"I liked the last one."

"Maybe I should tell you the ending first."

"What's the ending?"

"There are two. And you already know them. The first is the one where she decides she's going to spend her time gambling with everyone else's lives. The second is the one where she loses."

He frowned at her, shaking his head.

Well, if that was the way he wanted to play it... "Fine then," she said. "I'll start at the beginning."

**·**

**·**

Turn your back for one minute, and this was what it got you.

Of course it had been longer than a minute. More like a few days. But was this really what it was coming to? Did she have to begin watching the thing every _second_?

At least she had arrived in time. Though it was digging through the wreckage with its usual tireless persistence, it had not yet taken any notice of the cathedral that she could see. Watching it now, seeing it so close to the place where they lived, a wave of absolute fury came over her; she gripped the handle of her weapon, struggling to keep herself in check. Attacking it would be a mistake. Attacking it would alert the creature that there was something different about this place, that there was something here she was trying to defend. Worse yet, she might end up driving it straight toward them.

Lead it away from here. Far away. Leave it turned around and frustrated and chasing shadows. Just like always.

Deep breath.

She turned her back to the creature. Her footsteps, silent only a moment before, became carelessly pronounced as she began her way across a pile of broken red brick. Three steps, four, and... predictably, the noises of its digging ceased. Another step, and now began the faint squeak and rattle of its attempt at stealth. One more step, and then – she bolted.

Behind her, crashing and roaring as she dove off the mound and into the end of a pipe buried underneath. She heard claws clanging against the metal behind her, felt the ground lurching under her as it attempted to pull on the end – but kept her footing, and emerged out on the other side. The creature's shadow fell over her as it leaped overhead; it landed in front of her to cut off her escape, but she had already veered from that course and off to another, diving through a pile of splintering beams, effortlessly weaving her way through as it crashed and blundered behind her.

Distance. Had to get more distance.

Out in the open now, using the sounds and shadows from behind her to anticipate its moves, she tucked and leaped and dove around its every attempt to get to her, the last of the rage fading in the familiar surge, the blinding rush of exhilaration. She raced, her feet barely touching the ground; she danced, limbs flying, body whirling; she beckoned, driving the steady rhythm of the chase. Her weapon, ready in her hand, seemed to strike a chime. This was it. Today was the day. She could feel it.

Up ahead, a mountain of metal and stone. She made right for it, not needing a way under – in a burst of speed she leaped, touching down with one foot and leaping again, vaulting over it, flying, twisting through the air. Landing on both feet, she was running again without a second's pause, and the creature leaped too, bounded after her, quick and agile and undeterred. Back up into the mountains, into the landscape of wreckage – towering, teetering, treacherous – but she knew all of it, every place to put her feet, every place to avoid –

Or so she thought.

One second was all it took. One second of unsure footing, one second to falter. So close behind her, its victory was assured; a blow connected, a wallop that sent her careening into the remains of a metal hull. Gaining her feet, she found herself walled in on all sides and the beast closing in, growling, rearing up for the kill.

Thought she was that easy, did it? Hefting her weapon in one hand, she charged it, its ill-aimed swat at her glancing off her blade as she dashed beneath it. When it spun around, expecting her to come out from the other side, she charged again and thrust hard into the juncture of its ankle. The blade lodged into the joint, and the creature let out a resounding shriek.

And then, before she could think, before she could even feel the satisfaction of a blow connecting, she was down again. Thrown to the ground, her weapon yanked from her hands, as the beast spun around yet again, and even as she was getting to her feet it was already too late. Metal closed around her, trapping her, pinning her arms to her sides. She felt herself lifted, raised up, saw the face of the creature before her as she thrashed, flailing, kicking the empty air. As it let out monstrous bellow, seeming to vibrate the very air around her.

It turned its gaze away. Looked toward its ankle and her weapon still lodged there. As she watched, it reared up still further and reached out with its other claw, plucking the nuisance out. The ghastly red glow reflected off her blade as the creature examined it for a moment, and then dropped it, clattering, to the ground. The sound reverberated through her in a way that even its most dreadful roaring never had.

And then it turned its glowing eye back to her.


	5. Part 4 continued

Vox Humana – Part 4, continued

**·**

**·**

When she woke, she found she was somewhere strange.

There were bars.

On her feet in an instant, she turned a circle. Brass bars surrounded her on all sides.

A cage. She was in a cage. For a few moments she was so caught up in this indignity that she paid little attention to her further surroundings, but once she did, she realized they weren't any better.

It was a very large room, cavernous, filled with wreckage and debris, and though these things were nothing new to her, the quality of them was somehow different. The upper part of the nearby wall had a very large hole blown in it, and by the light of the afternoon sun she saw metal, more of it than she had ever seen in one place: walls of it, wheels of it, beams of it jutting in all directions. Beams of it, running along the walls, coming down at angles from a point on the ceiling. Metal.

This was that place. That place with the three towers. She would have bet her life on it.

Wait a minute.

She was alive. Why was she alive?

That thing had let her live. That thing had captured her, brought her here, put her in a cage, and let her live. She turned again, peering around in the sunlight. Listened carefully. It didn't seem to be here. What was going on?

Out of here. She had to get out of here.

The door. A place where the bars were different, over on the other side. That must be the door. In an instant she was there and pulling, pulling with all her might, bracing against one of the adjacent bars and pulling until she thought she'd tear from it. Nothing. She collapsed, panting, next to it. Okay. Okay. Stop.

Think.

Another look at the door. How did it work? She stood and looked at it more closely this time, struggling to calm herself. There were loops, some kind of loops, holding the door to the bars around it. Loops. It was meant to slide upward! She tipped her head back. Just above it, wedged horizontally between the bars, was another piece of metal, one that did not belong to the cage. Knowing already that it wouldn't work, she gripped the bottom of the door and heaved upward, again with all her might. It moved this time – half an inch. Enough to get a foot through.

Wait. A foot through... maybe she could...

She tried. Working her way around the cage, in every position she could think of, she tried to slip through the bars, but it soon became evident that it wasn't going to happen, at least not if she wanted to take her head with her – and while it did seem to get in the way more often than not, she had a feeling she wouldn't get very far without it. Okay, next good idea.

That piece of metal. Maybe she could move it. There was another brass bar running horizontally just below it, part of the structure of the cage. She could stand on it. With a running start, she jumped, caught hold of it, and pulled herself up. Wrapping her legs around one of the bars, she grabbed hold of the piece of metal and pulled. And pulled. And pushed. Yanked. Shook. Kicked. Finally she stood on it and jumped, knowing that this would push it down, but hoping it would at least loosen it somewhat.

Nothing. Not even half an inch.

She dropped back to the floor and rested a moment, regaining her breath. There had to be something. Something she could use. Detritus littered the bottom of the cage, likely remains of the previous occupant; there were bones. Bones. She dove for them, sifted through them, through the shroud of soft, wispy objects that surrounded them. Maybe there was something... but no. The bones were too short, too flimsy, to be of any use. Some of them were fused together. The skull, with its odd, curved protrusion in front, seemed to mock her, a strange echo of the creature that had put her here.

Desperately, she searched the bottom of the cage and finally the perimeter, sticking her arm out at intervals along the way and grabbing whatever she could reach, pulling it through wherever it would fit. A few wires, a piece of cloth, some nails, bolts, and screws. Excitement leaped inside her as she got hold of a sturdy nail, as long as her leg, and pulled it in. But her efforts to pry the bars with it were in vain; it was still too short to get the leverage she needed. She simply wasn't strong enough.

There was nothing else. Nothing she could use to pry the bars apart or budge that piece of metal. Nothing, nothing else.

One last thing. One last thing that might work. The cage sat on top of a mound of debris, with a fairly large drop off to the side. If she could knock it over, then it might –

Well. It might crack her head open. But it might bend the bars, too. Worth a shot.

Again, a running start – or as much as she could get in the confined space – and she slammed into the bars with her shoulder, with every ounce of strength she possessed.

It hurt. A lot.

Again.

A third time, and this time she jumped and kicked out with her feet, pushing hard on the bars and springing back, landing in a practiced roll. Again. And again. And again.

Some time later, as the sun sat low in the afternoon sky, she lay panting, quelled and exhausted, on the floor of the cage. Which had not moved. At all.

Breathing, breathing. She closed her eyes. Why this? This, of all things? Why had it not killed her, or even harmed her? What did it want? And if it wanted her here, in this cage, why was it not guarding her? Where had it... gone...

Looking. It had gone looking.

For more of them.

Out. Had to, had to get out. Had to. But how? It wasn't going to happen by force, that much was clear; she doubted even Eight could budge those bars. Of course, with more of them in there they might be able to work together to pry open or tip the cage, but it wasn't a theory she wanted to test. Besides, who was to say it would capture the others? Maybe it just wanted one of them – maybe, now that it had her, it might simply kill the rest.

Think.

Maybe it did just want one of them. The previous occupant, with its mocking skull, was long dead, and there was only one of those. What did it mean? With some effort, she sat up and slid over to the pile of bones, now somewhat scattered by her various attempts to free herself. She picked up the skull, turning it in her hands. It reminded her of something. Around her, the wispy objects, which had blown about as she had run past, reminded her of something. What were they? She examined them carefully now, holding one and running her hand over it. Thin, hollow shafts with lots of little fibers attached, extending almost all the way to the ends. Different shapes and sizes; some longer than her arm, others barely the length of her hand. Very soft and light. Familiar.

This creature... she knew it. It belonged in here. And it didn't.

An idea began forming; possibly a very good one. Or not. It was hard to tell, sometimes.

With renewed determination, Seven again made a pass around the cage, reaching out through the bars, now looking for anything she could use to tie things to her. Rope, thread, wire, anything. There was wire, a piece she had missed last time. She gathered it up, along with everything else she had at her disposal. The beast would surely come back to check on her, but hopefully it would take its time.

To her dismay, she saw as she took stock of the wires that none of them would work. They were all insulated, and too thick. She supposed she could strip them with the sharp end of a nail, but it would be slow and tedious. There was no rope, other than the single piece around her waist... all that was left was the cloth. The cloth. A strip of it, longer than the span of her arms. It had been cut, and the ends were already fraying. Perfect.

Pulling it into her lap, she felt a momentary pang. It looked like –

She shook herself and quickly set to work picking at the weave, unraveling it and separating the threads out lengthwise, one by one, until she had a pile of them. Next she turned to the wispy objects. There were a few dozen, enough for her purposes, and she began tying them to the threads, so that each thread had several lined up in a row. She stood up and tied the first finished one around her leg. The result did not give her a lot of confidence in her plan.

Still, it was all she had, and she kept working as quickly as she could, racing against the sun as it began its descent to the horizon. It was well into sunset by the time she was finally tying the loaded threads to herself; to her arms, legs, and torso, crisscrossing over her shoulders, and one around her neck. Fortunately there were no reflective surfaces at hand to show her how ridiculous she must have looked, but in the fading light, it did seem that the wispy objects, with their various patterns of black and white, blended reasonably well with the white color of her skin.

The skull, unfortunately, though it would have been just about the right size to slip onto her head, was not hollow. There was a structure of bone inside it that would take too long to chip away, if she could even do it with the tools she had. So she would have to improvise.

But before that, she needed a weapon. Something, anything. She would not, under any circumstances, wait around in this cage unarmed. The large nail was the obvious choice, but on its own it didn't amount to very much. She needed something with reach, something that could strike hard. Maybe if she had some kind of pole to attach it to, but there was nothing like that here. What else did she have? The wire, the threads – those were long. The threads might not be strong enough. The wire? The thinnest piece was quite long, and though it had been too thick to tie around those thin shafts, it might work for this. Yes. Pulled tight, it knotted securely around the head of the nail.

If this were a staff, like her other weapon, she would swing it in an arc, either with one hand or both. So –

Gripping the wire in both hands, close to the nail end, she swung it in a chopping motion, whacking the nail against the floor of the cage. And again. Hm. It did make a satisfying whooshing sound, but otherwise, not great. So how about this –

One hand gripping the end of the wire. The other holding it a few inches from the nail. Raising it up, she began whirling it round and round over her head. Not bad. She gave it a little more slack, widening the arc. More speed. Another delightful whooshing sound, until – crack! – the nail collided with the bars of the cage. Okay, then. This time standing in the center, she slowly put slack on the line, whirling it and whirling it until it was nearly brushing the bars. Then, when she judged the moment was right, she released it. The nail careened into the bars with an echoing clang.

A third try, tighter and faster. Release, and – the nail shot out of the cage, brought up short only by the end still held in her other fist. This had potential. She found that after a few more tries, she could even aim it relatively well. Unfortunately, there was no room to really practice, and no time; though her luck had held out so far, that thing could be back at any moment. It would have to do.

As the deep blue of twilight settled in, she began her final preparations. She retrieved the skull and, threading some of the cloth fibers through it, bound it to the back of her head as securely as she could. It was uncomfortable, with the threads tied across her face, but that was the least of her problems. She picked up the bones and tossed them out, over the side of the drop, and placed the other items just outside, still within arm's reach in case she needed them. Curling up in the very center of the cage, she tucked her new weapon underneath her and arranged the wispy things around her as best she could. Finally, and with a sense of finality, she put her head down within the circle of her arms so that the skull was displayed above it.

This... couldn't possibly work. What on earth was she doing? The beast wasn't completely stupid; it would probably see through her pitiful disguise immediately. She wasn't even sure what she was disguising herself as. And even she did succeed in confusing it, it wouldn't necessarily open the cage to investigate. But what choice did she have? She had exhausted every other possibility. No one else knew she was here, and even if they did...

Full darkness, now. Part of her wished she could just sleep again, to pass the time in unknowing oblivion instead of here with her thoughts, which at the moment were a bit dark themselves. Breathing, breathing. Don't think. Thinking was over. Now was time for action. Or would be, if the miserable thing would just come back already.

Curled up in the cage, in the darkness, within the circle of her arms, she tried, tried, tried not to think. About her weapon – her real one – clattering to the ground. About the twins. How long would it be before they would notice anything amiss? It wasn't like she visited them every day. What would they do? Who would protect them?

It seemed a long time passed this way. Eventually, a faint chink of light found its way past her shoulder into view. She picked her head up and saw the waxing moon, now visible through the wall, hovering in the western sky. What was taking so long? If this plan of hers had any chance of working, it would probably be in moonlight. How well could the thing see? Did everything look red to it, like the red of its eye? And when it did come back, where –

She froze.

There, in the distance. A noise.

Quickly, she lay back down, breathing, breathing. Easy, now. Be still.

With every moment the distant sounds grew louder: the low echoing moaning, the squeaking and rattling of ungainly limbs – louder and louder they grew, until finally the quality of the sounds changed such so that she was sure it was here, in this room.

Easy, now.

Squeaking and rattling, approaching the cage. Footfalls disturbing the debris around it. The low growl starting up from its throat sounded closer than it could possibly be; it seemed to ripple the air around her, around the cage. Footfalls changed direction, around again, the opposite way. Pacing, growling low, pacing.

Be still.

A light. Bright and beaming, piercing the cage, piercing the circle of her arms. The light moved now, shifting with the footfalls and the rising growl from its throat. Shifting shadows moved. Stopped. Changed direction. Around and around, pacing. Piercing.

Be still.

Suddenly, a deafening bang, a blow that rocked the floor underneath. She held on to herself, just barely. Didn't start. Didn't move. A second time it struck the cage, this time nearly tipping it over, and she pushed against the rough surface of the bottom with her hands and feet, to keep from sliding. Back it rocked, thumping into place again on the pile of debris.

The beast was still now. Shining its light on her, not moving, not making a sound. Shining on her, piercing her, not making a sound.

Don't breathe.

A new sound, now, a scraping of metal, the cage vibrating. She was sure from the sound and feel of it that one of its claws was gripping the bars. For a terrible moment she thought it was going to pick up the cage and shake it, turn it upside-down, but it did not. The light moved away from her, still shining, but toward something else.

Another scraping of metal. Scraping and shrieking, the cage jerking. Cage rattling with the force of it. A thump, of something being tossed aside. Metal squeaking, sliding – sliding upwards. Clanging. The light back on her.

Not yet...

Squeak and rattle of an ungainly limb. Squeak and rattle, drawing close. Shadow falling before the light – closing in – reaching –

Now.

Off like a shot, flying, past the arm still reaching for the place she had been – past it, through the door, the open door, as it wheeled about.

Past it – but not from it. No sooner was its light back on her than she was facing it, facing the light and the glowing red eye, weapon already swinging in a whistling arc, and as the beast reared up to swipe at her she released it. Though she missed her mark – she had been aiming for its glowing eye – she shouted in triumph as the nail drove home, right into the center of the skull-face, into the unprotected gap beneath the bone.

A great roar issued from the creature's throat, and it whipped its head back in agony. But she still held to the wire, and now, as it threw its head back, it also lifted her, and she swung, pulling forward with her legs and torso, underneath it. Reaching out with her foot, she hooked its thigh bone and pulled herself to it, still holding the wire, holding to the bone now as it reared and thrashed. Swiftly, before the beast could get its bearings and grab her, she climbed to the juncture of its legs and up into its spine.

She heard a ringing clatter as the nail hit the ground; the beast must have pulled it loose. And now it was grasping for her, or trying to – beating, swiping at itself – but she was between its backbones now, just out of reach. Legs clamped fiercely around its inner spine, she jerked on the wire she held, pulled it hand over hand as the roaring grew louder by the second. Twisting and turning every which way, it tried to grab her, tried to shake her loose, but still she held on, hauling, until the nail was in her hands.

With a cry, she held her prize aloft and drove it, drove it for all she was worth, into the spine. It glanced off the backbone – the thrashing grew still more violent around her – and lodged between the bone and the wires wrapped around. Seizing hold of either end of the nail, she twisted with all her strength.

A shriek came from the creature now, a terrible one she had never heard the like of, as she twisted the nail, twisted it until she couldn't twist any more, until finally, with a creaking shudder, its bucking limbs jerked and collapsed. A moment later, it was still.

Holding to the nail, panting, clamping with her legs, she listened. Waited. All was dark and quiet – the creature's lights had gone out.

She had done it.

Slowly she released her legs. Released the grip on the nail. It spun a little bit, unwinding as the tension on the wires slackened. She dropped back down to the pile of debris and walked around the body of her foe, facing it once more. In the light of the unshrouded moon, she saw the skull-face, dark now, and hollow. Was this really it?

Behind her was the cage; she turned to it. It didn't look nearly as terrible from the outside. What had the thing wanted? What had it been planning to do with her? Would it have been the same thing that happened to the last occupant? Her hand went to the pointed skull still bound to her head. To the wispy things – feathers, she now recalled – still tied to her. The cage glowed softly in the moonlight.

Glowed – red?

A second. A second too late. She saw it was coming, knew it was coming, a second, a second too late. The slashing claw caught her, and caught her hard – she heard herself tear as pain rocketed through her body. She stumbled forward, slamming into the cage; behind her, the creature was struggling, growling and squeaking and rattling and struggling. Struggling to get up.

No time for pain. Pain was for later. Hauling herself up by the bars, she pushed off and ran, ran as fast as she could, ran for all she was worth – which wasn't much. Her legs were like stone, her chest like lead. Her back like fire.

Coming up to the drop by the pile of debris, she jumped. Landed in a heap at the bottom. Got up and kept going, past another large pile draped with cloth, toward the crumbling wall. If it were that badly damaged, there must be a place where she could get out. The sounds of the creature's struggles were still above her, up on the mound of debris.

There. Ahead, in the darkness, a chink of light. Redoubling her efforts, she made straight for it, clambering over the wreckage of fallen stone, pushing the pain back and back as far as she could. Almost there. The creature was still attempting to pursue her – she heard it crash to the ground over the drop – come on –

She was there, at the chink of light, at the crack in the wall –

It was small, and low to the ground. She had to crawl through with her head held down to avoid catching the skull she wore, and cried out in agony when her wound brushed against the masonry. But she made it, leaving the hobbled squeaking and the crippled rattling behind her.

Come on. It's not over yet.

Stumbling to her feet, she looked around. The moon, clouded over now, gave just enough light to make out the city to her right, the emptiness to her left; it would be setting soon, with hours of total darkness ahead until sunrise. Behind the wall, the squeaking and rattling had stopped. Had it given up?

A wave of dizziness overtook her, and her knees gave way. No. No. She would not lie down here, not like this.

Come on. Your legs are fine. Get up!

She got up. By the time the moon had set, she had made it to a tunnel nearby, finding her way in the dark to a sheltered alcove shielded on three sides. It was all she could do. If it found her, then it found her.

It hurt even to breathe. Flat on her belly in her sheltered alcove, she tried not to, and closed her eyes as one blackness left, and another took her.


	6. Part 5

Vox Humana - Part 5

**·**

**·**

Her eyes snapped open.

She was somewhere strange.

Again.

Her first reaction was to immediately get up and look around. Her second reaction was to remember why that first reaction was a very bad idea. It took a few moments, prone and panting where she had collapsed back onto the ground, before she was ready to try again. Slowly. Slowly she rolled to her side and eased her way to a sitting position. Remembered where she was and how she had gotten there.

So the creature had not found her. What had happened back there? What had become of it? Had she killed it after all? Were those last final moments merely its death throes?

And as long as she was asking herself questions, here was a good one: how – how, how, how – could she possibly be so _stupid_?

There was no good answer to that one.

Her head felt very strange. Heavy. She put her hand to it. Oh. That skull was still tied to her. And so were the feathers, now that she took a better look at herself. Suddenly they seemed unbearably constricting, and despite the pain that came with moving, she stripped them from herself almost desperately. Where the threads couldn't be slipped off or worked loose, she took a sharp rock that was at hand and sawed through them, hacking until the last of her costume was off and in a disheveled pile next to her. There. That was something, at least.

Now there was just the small matter of the gaping wound in her back, and the fact that she was miles away from help. Well, she wasn't getting any closer to that by sitting here. As she hauled herself to her feet, she wondered if the twins even knew how to sew, and whether it really mattered. She was sure they could figure it out. And it wasn't like she had a choice in the matter.

Going back _there_ was out of the question.

The first steps were agonizing. Pain shot into every limb, so much so that she had to lean against the wall to stay upright, but after a few more steps it settled down a bit, and she was able to proceed, if not quickly, then at least well enough. Approaching the exit of the tunnel, she came across a stick of splintering wood about the right size, and though bending to retrieve it was not fun, leaning on it eased her way somewhat.

The sun was in the early afternoon sky. Had she really been asleep that long? For all she knew, it may have been longer, a full day or more, though she doubted it. Again she wondered about the fate of the beast; whether it had fully recovered, whether or not it would be searching for her. Whether it would be content to merely capture her this time. She wasn't sure how good a fight she could put up at the moment, but she would go down swinging. This stick was pretty sturdy.

All in all, the journey went about as well as it could. Though she really could have done without the dust storms.

**·**

**·**

As long as she would live – and she would look back more than once upon it later – she would never forget the twins' faces when they saw her. She couldn't imagine what she must have looked like, curled up where she had collapsed on the floor of the globe, but judging by those faces, it could not have been good. They knelt before her, hands fluttering over her, shaking, shaking their heads.

"I'm sorry," she said to them, though she wasn't sure why. "Can you – " she went on – or started to, before the blackness took her again.

**·**

**·**

When she woke next, she found that she was lying, still curled up, on something that wasn't the floor. Her head was propped up. The sun was beaming down through the open roof.

The globe. Despite the shooting pains, she began to sit up. Was this a book she was lying on? Where were the twins? Even as she was thinking it, one of them was climbing up and kneeling in front of her, easing her back down. Three. It was Three, taking her hand and looking at her with a somewhat more encouraging expression than the day before. The twins must have done something to her; the wound felt a little different. Cleaner, somehow.

"I – need you." Her words came out in a whisper; it hurt to talk. "I need you to try – do you know how? Is there a book you can – " Three was looking over at something, probably Four. "I need you to – "

Someone else was climbing onto the book. Kneeling in front of her. A low, gentle voice: "Shhhh... shhhh, now... it's all right." There, taking Three's place in front of her, was –

Two.

Two was here.

"How – " she said, hearing her voice break. "How – "

"Shhh," he said. "Hush, now. It will only hurt you to speak. The twins came to get me. No one else knows. It's all right."

It wasn't, it really wasn't, and at his soft words a great rush of something welled up inside her, something she didn't understand and profoundly wished would go away; she closed her eyes against it, overcome. One of his hands held hers, and she clutched it as he stroked her forehead with the other.

Far more soothing was the sterner tone his voice took on as he instructed her not to speak or move, even as he reassured her that, badly hurt as she was, she could be fixed.

Stern was definitely better.

**·**

**·**

"So he knew?" said Nine. "The whole time? And he never told the others?"

"I'm getting to that."

"Well, I'm not surprised he came for you. That seems like exactly the type of thing he would do."

"Then you knew him better than I did," said Seven. "It never even occurred to me."

"So then he fixed you..." he prompted her.

She nodded. "I'm still not sure what he did, but it took a long time, and from what I could feel, it seemed complicated. The twins helped him." She smiled wryly. "They studied a lot about sewing after that."

"What about you? Did you study it?"

"A little. But I'm not very good."

"I should ask them to teach me," he said, and then, before her eyes, he suddenly came over awkward in a way she hadn't seen in some time. "Um... is it all right if I..."

"What?"

Tentatively, he made a motion, a gesture, toward her; after a moment she realized he was indicating her back.

"Oh." Well, that was all right. Wasn't it?

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean... never mind." He looked unaccountably embarrassed.

"No, it's okay," she said, and turned around where she sat so that her back was facing him.

She should have expected it, should have been ready for it. But she wasn't. The gentle touch sent a jolt through her, right into every limb. She gasped.

"Did that hurt?"

"... No."

"I'm sorry, is this – "

"It's fine," she found herself saying.

A moment's hesitation, and then his fingers brushed her again. Another jolt. She struggled to control her breathing as he traced along the edges of the repair. "What does it feel like?" he whispered.

"Huh?" What had they been talking about?

"Does it feel the same as the rest of you?" His hand now moved above it, gliding across her undamaged skin.

"... Yes," she said, once his words had filtered through to her. Her voice sounded strange. Constricted. "It feels like the rest of me."

The touch lingered a few moments longer, and then fell away. Behind her, she now realized, his breathing had picked up as well. It was impossible to say how long she sat there, waiting for breath and reason to return, but by the time they did, she was surprised at how dark it was getting.

Candles. Still there, from the night before. If they were going to go back to the globe, they probably weren't necessary, as full dark hadn't quite fallen yet...

Light flared in her eyes from the match. She touched it to the first wick and held it before her, seeing only its flame, as she walked to the second. Seeing only its flame, but feeling another, feeling his eyes on her as she walked; the glow surrounded her, and though it may have made her more visible, she knew that he would have seen her just as well without it.

Whatever it was that had just happened, he had made it happen. Had he intended it? Had it happened to him, too? She was sure it had. And she was just as sure that she had done no better a job at hiding it.

Was there nothing left? Was there no part of her he could not reach?

She stretched up and touched the match to the second candle. Extinguished it. Let it fall, clattering, to the ground.

"Are you all right?" His voice came, soft and tentative, from behind her, where he still sat.

Why did he even bother asking? What was he trying to prove? Was _this_ a game? If it was, she would have to strongly caution him that, as she herself could attest, it was unwise to play with dangerous creatures.

Footsteps behind her. "I could tell you the rest," she said, without turning, "but you already know it."

"I'm – not sure about that."

"But you have a good idea, don't you? You always do."

"I don't know. Maybe."

"Maybe." Now she turned around. He was quite close to her, little more than an arm's breadth away. She took a step back. "Okay, then. Take your best shot. What happened next?"

Did he have to look at her that way? "He must have promised you he wouldn't tell the others. You must have asked him to."

"Very good. Now ask me why."

"Why?"

"I have no idea."

He frowned at her.

"It's true."

Of course, he wasn't going to leave it at that. He stretched his hand out to her. Without thinking, she took it, and let him lead her back to the center of the map. They sat down.

Okay, then. Deep breath.

**·**

**·**

"Be gentle with it for the next few days," said Two, wincing a little as he watched her twist this way and that. "It still needs to stretch a bit. Gradually," he clarified as a twinge of discomfort stopped her in mid-bend.

"I can't believe it," she said, straightening up. Only a day or so ago she had thought – well, never mind what she had thought. "It feels... like a part of me. Like – "

"Like it never happened?" His tone was serious, but when she turned to look at him, he was smiling. "Would you like to see?" he said, gesturing now to the twins, who were coming over with a pair of glass shards held between them. "I should warn you, though. It's red."

"What's red?"

"The cloth I had to use for the outer patch. I had brought white cloth, but it turned out it wasn't heavy enough."

Oh. "I don't care about that. It doesn't matter what it looks like."

"Of course. I just didn't want you to be surprised."

Surprised. Well, it was a little late for that. She opened her mouth, but that welling feeling was back again, making it difficult to speak.

"What's wrong? Are you in pain?" he asked, placing a hand on her arm.

She shook her head. Then: "Why?"

"I'm sorry, you just looked – "

"No, I mean, why? Why did you do this? Why did you come here?"

"Do you really need to ask that?"

"I – "

"You would have done the same, would you not?"

"Of course, but – "

"And I know it's going to sound terrible of me," he went on, cutting her off, "but I'm glad this happened. Much as it may have pained me to see you hurt, it's far better than thinking you were lost."

She closed her eyes.

"And that is what we thought. The way you ran out of there, after I had just fixed you from the last time..." he passed a hand over his eyes. "I blame myself for everything, you know. I should have known both of you better than that. I should have at least gone up there with you; perhaps I could have prevented things from getting so far out of hand. But I wanted you to work out your differences on your own. I thought it would be better that way." He shook his head; she was struck by how small and weary he suddenly looked. "And that's not the only thing I should have done differently. I shouldn't have kept those things from you. It was my decision – the others wanted to tell you. But I was convinced that you would fly off the handle; that you wouldn't understand. That you might do something rash. But maybe if I had explained it to you – "

"Explained what?" she said, finding her voice again. "What was there to explain? He's running your lives like a tyrant, and you're letting him. I really don't see any more to it than that."

"No, I imagine you don't."

"What does _that_ mean?"

"It means," he said, fixing her with his sternest, shrewdest look, "that not all of us see things the way you do. To us, other things are more important."

"More important than what? Freedom?"

"That's exactly my point. That's the way you see the world: there's freedom, and there's imprisonment. There's doing whatever you want, and there's having your life run for you."

"And what about that is wrong, exactly?"

"Have you never considered the possibility that there might be something in between?"

"Between freedom and imprisonment?"

"If that's the way you want to put it."

"All right," she said, throwing her hands up, "why don't you explain it to me? Why don't you tell me what it is that's so important that you're willing to put up with his rules and his orders and his – _enforcer_ – " she spat the word out like a curse – "in order to stay there? Why do you do it? What are you getting out of it?"

As she spoke, the stern look had faded from his face, to be replaced by another one, a strange frown that, had she not known better, she might have almost interpreted as pity. "Do you really not know?" he asked quietly.

"No, I really don't. What is it? Your gadgets?"

"What about you?" he said, turning to the twins, whom she suddenly realized had been standing there the entire time. "Do you know?"

They exchanged a look, then, as one, nodded solemnly at him.

"And you still want to stay here."

They nodded again.

"Well, you have each other, I suppose..." he said, not quite under his breath.

"What are you talking about?" she said.

"I'm talking about us. Each other. We have each other, we have our group. We're together. That's what's so important. That's the most important thing there is."

Together.

"Is this really what you want?" he went on. "Do you really want to be apart from all of us?"

"But I'm not apart from all of you," she said. "I'm still with you. I just can't stay there. I can't – this needs to be done, and no one else will do it. I can't stay there."

"So what will you do? Wander the emptiness alone for the rest of your days?"

"If that's what it takes."

"And how many more times will it take? How many more times will you have to be hurt like this, until one day – "

"What choice do I have? I tried, all right? You said we should all stand together. Well, I tried to reason with him, just like you said. I tried to tell him that we should all fight – together. He didn't listen, so I did what I had to do."

"I know things may not have gone very well up there, but that didn't mean you had to – "

"You weren't there."

"No, I wasn't, but – "

"Anyway, it doesn't matter. He still – " She took a deep breath. "I still need to be out here. And I'm not alone," she said, holding her hands out to the twins. They came over and took them, flanking her. "They're helping me. They've been researching, trying to figure out where this thing came from."

Two looked at each of them in turn, and finally back at her. "It's dangerous out here for them, too, you realize."

"No more dangerous than it is where you are. And I'm watching out for them. And for you."

"But you're not invincible," he said, "and you can't be everywhere."

"I can try," she said, smiling a little. "Like you said, some things are more important."

"Well, what about the rest of us? What are we to do?"

"I told you, I'm watching out for you, too."

"I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the three of you being away from us. What are we to think, with you off in the wilderness tracking that creature, constantly putting yourself in harm's way? What if you don't make it back to the twins the next time? How will we know if anything's happened to you? Or to them?"

Wait. The others. A bolt of panic went through her. "You can't tell them," she blurted out.

"What?"

"You can't tell them." In the space of a breath she had let go of the twins and dove to take his hands, bending to look him right in the eye. "Please," she said. "Promise me."

He leaned back, dumbstruck.

"Please," she said again. "I know it's a lot to ask. You've done so much for me already. But you can't tell them you saw me."

"Are you serious?" he asked faintly.

"Yes. Promise me, please."

"But – why?"

"I just – please. Promise me."

"You can't expect me to – "

"I know it's a lot to ask," she said, gripping him tightly. "But if you do it, I promise I'll do everything in my power to keep you all safe."

"You just said you were doing that anyway."

True. "Even so. I need you to do this."

"Why? Why is it so important to you?"

"It just is," she said. "Please. For me."

Two bowed his head. He was silent for a long moment. "All right," he finally said, looking back up at her. "For you."

A tremendous wave of relief settled over her. She took a deep breath and released his hands.

"Well," he said, "what am I going to tell them? I've been gone almost a full day already. Someone's bound to have noticed."

She hadn't thought of that. But, wait – "How long?"

"I left at dusk yesterday evening," he said, and indicated the darkening sky above the open top of the globe.

"What?" It was noon when she awoke earlier...

"You were out for quite some time. You were badly hurt, after all."

"Yes, but, you were here? All that time?"

"I wasn't working on you the whole time, if that's what you're asking. It took some time for us to get here, and then we spent a few hours preparing. These two were a great help," he said, nodding to the twins, who smiled at him. "We had to put together a workspace, and then we had to get you cleaned up. There was a lot to do before I could start the actual repairs. And then I was so exhausted from it all that I slept for a while."

"You _slept_?"

"Yes, if you can imagine," he said, chuckling. Her face must have reflected her concern, for he then said: "No, no – it was fine, honestly. Best thing I could have done. I feel better than I have in months."

"If you say so."

"I do. Now, I'll need to work out what to tell them. In the meantime, are you sure you don't want a look?" He gestured to the mirror shards the twins had set down earlier. "It's good work, even if it is red."

Before she could answer, she suddenly noticed the twins stirring excitedly, chattering to one another with their flashing eyes, and then the next thing she knew, they were swooping in – Four taking her arm, Three latching onto Two – and sweeping them out of the globe. Apparently, they had thought of something.


	7. Part 6

Notes: Strong "T" rating on this part. Adult situations, vague sort-of sex, etc.

There will be one more part coming after this. Thanks for reading! :D

* * *

Vox Humana – Part 6

**·**

**·**

Her weapon was right were she'd left it – right where she had heard it fall. She took it up and inspected it carefully, feeling its beautiful weight in her hands. All seemed to be in order. There was still plenty of time to return to the library and escort Two back under cover of dark, assuming she could find what she was looking for. Chances were slim that they would be seen, even during the day, but she would still rather not risk it.

A short distance away, she could see the windows of the cathedral reflecting the moonlight. Again she wondered about the beast. Where was it? Had it fully recovered? And should she tell Two what had happened?

Of course, if she did, he might not keep his promise to her. He might decide, perhaps rightly, that the others needed that information more than he needed to keep his word. But really, there was no telling what any of it meant. The thing was probably still alive and well. It had probably been planning to kill her, or worse. And clearly, whatever it may have wanted, it certainly wasn't above hurting them. What good would it really do to tell him?

The moon had traveled a bit before she found something she could use, a sort of wooden box with wheels attached, not quite as tall as she was. Some kind of handle had been attached to the front, mostly broken off; it took a little more time to find some rope and tie it to the hinge so she could pull it. By the time she got it back to the library, she estimated there were still a few good hours of moonlight left. She parked it outside and headed back to the globe.

As she approached the entrance, she heard Two talking to the twins. "Once you got a lift up and running, all that space up there would be usable. Think of the possibilities! All these sections... I can't imagine a more perfect place for you."

"That was my feeling," said Seven, as she crossed the threshold. "About the last part, anyway."

"Did you find something?" Two asked.

She nodded.

"I suppose it's time, then. Keep the supplies," he said to the twins. "I have a feeling you'll need them."

Seven looked over at the place where Two had worked on her. An assortment of tools and other items was laid out on a book, next to the one she herself had laid upon, in as neat and orderly an arrangement as he would have back in his own shop. She recognized the shears; they were his favorite ones. And suddenly she was back in the candlelit room, leaning against the bench, listening to the chattering of the twins as they circled the latest marvel, listening to Five's laughter. Listening to the voices.

"Are you all right?" Two asked her.

She shook herself and blinked. "Are you ready?"

"Whenever you are."

Working together, the four of them got the strings of bulbs hefted over the pile of books at the library's entrance and loaded into the cart. "I can't believe you finally did it," Seven said as they crammed the last of them in.

"I wish you all had been there," Two laughed. "Even Eight was excited."

"He went up there with you?"

"Of course. He helped us with the batteries. Six did as well."

"Really?" she said, laughing a bit herself. She would have liked to have seen that.

The twins were sorry to see him go. Two embraced them each in turn, saying something quietly to them which she could not hear. "This was an excellent idea," he said a moment later, gesturing to the bulbs. "Thank you for remembering."

The journey back to the cathedral was quiet, the only sounds being those of the wind and the trundling of metal wheels on stone. As they drew close, she thought again about telling him, but couldn't quite bring herself to do it.

When they came to the point of their parting, Two embraced her as well. She was surprised by it, and later, she would realize that it was the first time any of them had ever done so. "Take care of yourself," he smiled gently, "and the twins. And you should know that if you ever change your mind, we would welcome you. All of us."

She believed that he believed it, anyway. She handed him the rope. "Thank you," she said, and hoped he understood how sincerely she meant it. "For everything."

Seven watched him, gripping tightly to the handle of her weapon, until she was certain he was safe inside. Then she went back to the library – to the twins – and though the waxing moon still glowed through the broken glass, she lit a candle.

There, in its light, she finally stood between the mirror shards and examined his handiwork. Red was certainly a word for it. Though it wasn't entirely, she saw as she looked more closely; the lower part was white, though a different shade than her skin. The bigger shock by far was her numeral. Most of the top part remained, and the barest trace of the bottom edge, but over half of it was gone. She supposed it made sense, given the location of the wound – but still.

But it could have been worse. Though she didn't know much about sewing, even she could tell it was good work, and most importantly, it felt great. In the end, she decided she kind of liked it.

Leave it to Two.

**·**

**·**

Nine's head was bowed, his shoulders slumped, in that same way they had done at the burning. "I wish I could have known him."

"You did know him."

"I wish I could have known him longer."

"You're a lot like him."

He smiled. "That's what Five said. When we were on our way to save him."

Five. She had always known he had it in him. "He would know."

Nine picked his head back up. "Didn't you miss them?" he asked. "Their voices?"

"Sometimes."

"But it was so long," he said. "When you – when you were out – you were gone for five-and-a-half days. I counted them. And it was just, so... "

"Quiet."

"Yes. I mean, the twins – they talk. They do. But it's not the same. And most of the time, you weren't even with them. How did you stand it?"

What was he asking her? "I don't know," she said. "It wasn't really something I had to stand."

"So you were fine with it. Being alone."

She shrugged.

He looked away, his face suddenly stricken.

"What?" she said. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing," he said, shaking his head. He stood up. "Maybe we should find out what the twins are doing. Or at least how much longer it's going to take."

What just happened? "All right," she said, standing as well.

He walked past her, over to the edge of the dais, looking out over the pools of water and sodden books. "We do understand, you know. That it won't be much better out there. In fact, it'll be worse. Especially once we're really out there, where it's flat."

Did they, really? It was one thing to say it.

"But we can't just hide. You know that better than anyone. We have to take risks. There's no point in living otherwise. Whatever happens, we'll deal with it."

And there it was.

For so long, she had been the only one. What would it have been like, if he had been there from the start? If he had been there, ages ago, aeons ago, at the end of the world, at the start of theirs? If there had been just one other, one other who could not only say those words, but far more importantly, act on them?

What would she have been like?

She did not say any of this. Not even when she walked over and took his hand. Not even when he still refused to look at her.

"We'll leave these lit," she said instead. "It'll be easier to find our way back."

**·**

**·**

The twins, unsurprisingly, were right where they had left them earlier, sitting cross-legged on top of a book, still working on their drawing. They looked up as they heard her and Nine approach. "So what have you been up to?" she said, smiling at them. "I hear you've been pretty secretive."

They looked incredibly pleased with themselves.

"Is this what you've been working on?" She looked at the sheet of paper on which they sat; it was larger than both of them together, nearly as large as the cover of the book. On it were a number of geometric shapes drawn precisely in graphite, all rather large themselves, none of which overlapped. Her numeral was written in black ink in one of the corners. Did this have something to do with her? A second, much smaller sheet, covered with calculations, was in Four's hands. None of it looked terribly impressive – or helpful. "What is it?"

The pair locked eyes with one another, flashing them, apparently consulting. Then, as one, they hopped down from their book and took hold of her, took hold of Nine, and steered them toward the lift.

Together, they rode up to the deep darkness of one of the higher levels; she could barely see her own feet as they stepped off the lift into the section. A moment later, a flame jumped to life, and was quickly joined by several more as one of the twins lit a row of low candles in glass containers. She had never seen them use that many at once before, and she imagined that, like herself, they no longer felt it necessary to conserve them. Again she was struck with the enormity of what they were about to undertake. Of what had changed.

Now she looked around in the light, and saw what to her seemed to be the usual collection of papers and books, along with some bundles and heaps of fabric, and a few spools and jars. Nine went over to an open book, soft-covered, secured so it stayed upright against the wall; the page it was open to contained several diagrams. "I don't understand," he said, peering closely at it. "You're making... clothes?"

The twins scurried over to the mounds of fabric and in an instant had two rolled bundles unfurled. Seven watched as they each wrapped their sheet of fabric around themselves and fastened it down the front. They then stood, with their arms held out, looking expectantly at her and Nine in turn.

She saw now that it was indeed clothes they had made; long garments, reaching down past their knees, with sleeves and hoods. It did look like nice work, though the fabric they had chosen was a bit strange. Of course, not nearly as strange as the fact that they had made them at all.

"Seven..." Nine said, approaching the twins, with that tone his voice got when he was on to something big. He patted one of their sleeves, felt the fabric between his fingers. "Do you know what these are?"

She did, but couldn't think of the exact word. "Clothes?"

"Yes, but..." he said, with barely contained excitement, "do you know what kind of clothes? Here. Here, take a look at this." He gestured for her to come over.

The twins' doubly-hooded faces were heavily shadowed, but she could see them clearly enough as they nodded eagerly at her. She managed a small smile as she walked over and felt the fabric of one of their sleeves. It felt odd. Like fabric, but not. Sort of – slippery, maybe? She didn't get it. Why were they wasting their time with this?

"Don't you see?" Nine took her arm now, took her hand, placed it again on the fabric. "They're waterproof. This is waterproof fabric. These are waterproof clothes. They'll protect us from the rain."

Waterproof.

Seven gazed at the twins in wonder. Speechless. They looked up at her, faces shining beneath the shadows; something filled her then, something bright and buoyant, and before she could even stop to think about it, she pulled the two into a rough and joyous embrace. Laughter filled the room: hers, Nine's, the silent laughter of the twins shaking against her.

Waterproof.

There were leg-coverings, too, the twins showed them next, stepping into them and securing them around the waist and ankles with drawstrings. Pieces of rubber had been attached to the bottoms of the feet – for traction, Nine explained. They looked a bit awkward to walk in, but she suspected that if they found themselves in a situation dire enough to need them, that would be the least of their problems.

"I can't believe it," she said, over and over again. Something so simple, so ingenious. Suddenly things seemed possible. A future seemed possible, that she now realized never truly had before, at least not to her. She suspected, however, looking at the three of them, that she had been the only one who had felt that way.

As she stood there, admiring, unable to keep the smile from her face, something caught her eye in the far corner. A shine, a shape she recognized. She went over to it. There, laid out on the floor, on top of a folded white cloth, was a pair of shears. Small – one of the smallest she had ever seen – maybe half her height in length. Sharp.

His.

An assortment of other tools and needles lay on the cloth as well. She had known the twins had kept them, but had never really thought about it after that night. Had never seen them since.

And she was there. Listening again.

He was here. Right here, in the room. They were all here.

Footsteps behind her. A hand on her arm. "What are you looking at?"

All this time, as she had spoken of them, they had been speaking to her. And for the first time since the burning – since the release – she realized something that she had known all along:

They were everywhere. _He_ was everywhere.

"Are you all right?" Nine's voice.

Nine. Like him, but not. Like them, but more. Like him, like all of them, like the next step, like the final flourish. Like an end to waiting. Like a beginning.

In one motion, she turned and threw her arms around him. Heard him blink, no doubt in surprise. Felt him tense. A moment passed, then two, in which she doubted herself, in which she thought she may have made a big mistake.

But then he pulled her in, pulled her close, clasped her as firmly as she clasped him. Held to her. And there, in the candlelight, in the circle of his arms, something connected. Something closed. Something with neither a beginning nor an end.

Suddenly things seemed possible that never had before, and in this fold, in this circle, she found herself almost, finally, believing. In another way to live, another way to be. Was it real? Would it vanish when they parted, like disappearing green?

Did he believe it?

Too soon to tell. Just a moment longer.

Was it too long? Was this untoward? Was he waiting for her to release him? She didn't think so, but she wasn't the best judge of these things. A test, maybe. She slipped from him, just a little, and was gratified when he tightened his hold. She tightened hers. Pressed herself to him, not letting go, not even when her breath sped up, not even when his hand, moving down her back, sent a jolt into her every limb.

They gasped in unison. His hand froze.

He had felt it, too.

Which of them was trembling?

Slowly, tentatively, he moved his hand again, and she cried out softly, her head falling back, her eyes closing. Tremors were going through him; she could feel them. She could feel his breath. Again he stroked her, and it was as if he was reaching inside her, lighting her up, sparking a current through something coiled and incandescent – something that had long lain dormant, but was now brightly burning, now alive.

He cried out. Both hands now, and she was racing, gasping, striving in his arms. Striving against his shoulders, clinging to him, as her body arched. He seemed to be everywhere; there was no part of him she could not feel, no part of her he could not reach –

A bolt of panic went through her. Too much. It was too much. She took hold of his shoulders and pushed, pushed him back, pushed him to arm's length. He frowned at her, blinking. Dazed. Panting.

She was panting.

His hands were still on her, at her waist. His hands. Hers were on his shoulders. Still a fold, still a circle. Another step, and it would break.

_Come back_, his face said, his hands said. _Come back._ Hands at her waist, gathering.

She went.

**·**

**·**

Some time later, they lay – having collapsed where they stood – on the floor, next to the white cloth. Gradually their breathing was quieting. He still held to her, one arm draped loosely around her waist, and she to him, her arm sprawled across him, exactly where it had ended up when she had fallen.

Where were the twins? She remembered hearing the lift at some point. Vaguely, it occurred to her that she should probably feel bad about that. Had she the capacity to feel bad about anything at that particular moment, she might have.


	8. Part 7

The thrilling conclusion! Or not. :D

Many, many thanks to anyone who's taken the time to read this. Hope it's been worth your while.

* * *

Vox Humana - Part 7

**·**

**·**

The twins had taken the lift, and what was more, had departed the globe entirely, as she found out when she called down for them. "I think we scared them off," she said. Things had gotten a bit... noisy.

"How do we get down?"

Seven, of course, could leap easily from the platform, as they both knew. "There's this," she said, tugging on the rope that held the tag to the section. It was tied to a heavy-looking metal box with several dials. "But I don't want to pull it loose from the book."

"What about this?" said Nine. He had gone over to the spools, and now patted the largest one, wound with sturdy cord.

"That'll work."

As they lowered the cord to the ground and prepared to cut it, he said: "I still want to hear the endings. Both of them."

Why? He already knew them.

Nine held the cord while she cut. As he set about tying it to the metal box, she went to the corner and placed the shears tenderly back on the cloth.

"Those were his tools, weren't they? The ones he left."

Of course he would know that. "Yes," she said.

"He's still looking out for us."

She smiled. Her thoughts exactly.

**·**

**·**

It rained a little the following morning, and the twins tested their garments, splashing through the pools with their leg-coverings, twirling under the spray from the open roof. Seven could almost hear their exuberant laughter as she watched, along with Nine, from just inside the entrance to the globe.

"Why didn't we think of this?" he said, laughing with her.

It was a good question. Even if not this exactly, at least something should have occurred to her. Like a portable shelter, for example. Not that she had any idea how such a thing would work, but she did know they existed. It seemed so obvious now.

"I should have thought of it when we covered up the globe," he went on. "Even though we just used regular cloth. Maybe that's when they got the idea."

"I had no idea there even was waterproof cloth."

"I only remembered it when I saw it last night. But people would wear those kinds of clothes to protect themselves, even though the rain didn't really hurt them."

"There are all kinds of rooms in this place, with all kinds of things," she said. "Like the place where they found the bulbs. I remember there being some clothes in one of them." Long garments, hanging in a tall alcove, one of them in a strange and shiny fabric.

"It's funny, isn't it? How there are some things we just know, and some things we have to learn. And some things that we don't realize we know until we see them."

Or feel them. A sharp little thrill went through her as she remembered.

"And it's different for all of us," he said. "What we know, what we can do."

What had they been talking about? Oh, right. "They have a lot of knowledge stored up. They can probably do almost anything."

"_We_ can do almost anything." He smiled at her, and that little thrill went through her again. Though they stood close together, framed in the narrow opening of the globe, they did not touch, and that was for the best.

"You should get to work on that light. They should be finished with our things in a few days."

"Oh, I wanted to ask you about that. It won't work."

"What?"

"The bulb won't light. It looks like it should. Nothing's broken inside. But no matter what I do, I can't get it to work."

As they went over to his workspace, abandoned from the night before, the twins came back inside. Seven watched as they scurried over to a cloth they had laid out, removed the dripping clothes, and hung them on a wire stretched across overhead. "Come here," she said to them, and when they did, she inspected them each in turn, looking for wet patches. A bit on their faces, on their hands. They would have to be careful about that. But all the covered places were dry. "I can't believe it," she said again. All those years of protecting them, and now they were protecting her.

The pair smiled brightly at her, and then, in perfect sync, departed for the lift. There was still much for them to do.

The metal pieces, which had been strewn around haphazardly the other night when she had sat with him, were neatly arranged now, on top of two books stacked to make a table. Nine picked up the housing he had built for the bulb and handed it to her. "I tried it with a switch," he said, "and without. All the connections are there. But it still won't light."

Inside the housing was the battery. She shook it out into her hand. "Where did you get this?" she asked.

"From one of those things the people wear on their wrists. The ones that tell time."

"Was it working? Were the little things moving inside?"

He frowned. Apparently not.

"Where did you get the last one?"

"Five had it with him."

Which meant – "The power goes away from these things after a while. He must have put power back into that one. From the generator."

"Right," he said, nodding. "Right. That's – of course. So... there's probably no way I can do this, then. There won't be any out there that still work. Not after all this time."

She handed the things back to him. "I'm sorry. I should have thought of it before."

He smiled at her. "It's all right. I didn't either. And anyway, maybe we could build one of those things someday. A generator. If we found a place where we wanted to stay. But it would have been good to have a light for our journey."

They already did.

Of course, she did not say this. What she said was: "We'll deal with it. I can usually find my way, even when it's darkest. And there's always the twins."

"The twins... oh! Their lights."

"They can use them if they need to. They can only keep them on a few minutes at a time, but in an emergency, it should be enough."

Nine placed the housing down on the book, and then the battery. His hand moved over to the glass bulb, lingering on it just a moment, before letting it go as well.

When he turned back to her, he looked at her very seriously, and then did something very strange: he took her hand, brought it up to his face, and brushed his mouth against her fingers. It was... not unpleasant. She took a deep breath.

"I need to ask you something," he said.

She blew the breath out again. Of course.

"I was trying to wait for you to tell me. But I don't think you will. So I'll ask you."

This didn't sound good...

"What is this thing," he asked, "that you think I know?"

She took her hand back. Stared at him.

"You think I know something," he went on, unfazed. "I think it has to do with why you left the other night. And I thought you might tell me when you got back, but then I realized that you think I already know it. It doesn't even matter what it is. If you don't want to tell me, then don't. But I just thought that I should tell you that I don't know it. Whatever it is." He frowned a little, as if he was trying to work out what he had just said.

But she knew exactly what he was saying. And if he was lying, then he was incredibly good at it. His face, his voice, held no trace of insincerity.

How was this possible?

"I know it's something you've done that you regret. I've worked out that much. But it's in the past now. So if you don't want to tell me – "

"In the past?" she said, finding her voice again. "In the past? All I've heard from you since the others – all you've been asking about is the past!"

"What are you talking about?"

What was going on, here? Was she losing her mind? "I'm talking about you. Asking the same question over and over again, only you wouldn't just ask me directly, you kept trying it to make it look like you were asking me other things. How often did I visit the twins? Did I ever want to visit the others? How long was I with them? Where did I live, how long was I away? So I answered your real question, the one you wouldn't ask me, just to get some peace. And then – " she planted her feet – "_then_ you come at me with, why didn't I tell them I was out there? What about what I said to One? And now you're trying to tell me, now you're really, seriously trying to tell me, that you don't care about the past?"

He stared at her. "I – but – " he stammered, shaking his head. "None of that was about the past."

Maybe she was losing her mind. Or he was. Yes, it was definitely him.

"What did you think I was trying to ask you?" he said.

"So now you're going to – "

"No, no, please," he broke in, holding up his hands. "Tell me. What did you think I was asking?"

"You were asking," she ground out, "why I left them."

Comprehension dawned on his face. "Right," he said, nodding. "That – explains a lot."

Ten seconds. She was ten seconds away from hauling off and –

"You were right, there was something I was trying to ask you. But that wasn't it."

"Then what?" she snapped. "What was it?"

Out of nowhere – incongruously, incomprehensibly – he came over with that look again. That shy look. That awkward look. "I – you answered it already. At least, I think you did."

"You just said that – "

"Not then," he said. "Last night."

"What, you mean when I told you about the – "

"No. After that." If his face was anything to go by, there was no doubt as to what he meant.

Words failed her.

He averted his eyes. "I wanted to know if you were going to leave. If what you really wanted – was to be alone. Like you were before. I wasn't – I mean, what happened back then was – I just wanted to know if you were going to leave. I was trying to figure you out."

He was trying to figure her out.

She played back all of those questions in her mind. The ones before. The ones since.

How could she have done this? How could she have misjudged him so completely? All he'd wanted to know was if he would have to go the rest of his life without another voice. She couldn't even blame him for wondering. For hadn't she often wondered it, too?

The difference was, for her, it would be a choice. She had chosen that path before. She had made her peace with it. But he hadn't. And to consign another to silence – to unending, unbroken silence – against their will –

How could he think that of her? Even if she did leave, it would only ever be for a little while. She had made mistakes, and plenty of them, but she had never set out to deliberately hurt anyone. And she had thought he understood her. She had thought that there were things that she hadn't had to say, that he perceived, that he _knew_.

She had thought that he knew _her_. That he _saw_ her.

And had still...

Those things that they had done. Those things that she had let him do. Letting him hold her. Letting him put his hands on her. Crying out in surrender. Surrendering herself.

But he didn't know. He didn't know her. And maybe, he never even wanted to. He had just blundered into it, blundered into everything, the way he had been doing for the entire two weeks of his waking life – a child, he was a _child_ – and she had –

She had soaked it up. Soaked up his regard, basked in his unwavering attention.

And even worse than that – more appalling, more humiliating than that – was that she still wanted to. Still wanted his eyes on her, his hands on her. Still wanted his regard. His attention. Still wanted to talk to him. Still wanted to hear his voice. Still wanted to cry out in his arms.

Because he may not know her, but she knew him. He was still all the things he was before. Still clever, still perceptive, still compassionate. Still resilient. Still the one who had risked life and limb for her, the way no one else had, the way no one else ever would. Still the one willing to die to put right the mistakes he had made in complete innocence. Still the one willing to act, to take risks, to stand up even when she herself faltered, when even her own supposed courage failed her.

Still the next step, still the end to waiting. Still the beginning.

Why did he have to open his mouth? Why did he have to tell her? Couldn't he have let her go on believing? Why could he never leave well enough alone?

It was her own fault.

Because once again, she had not been listening. To him, to what he had been asking. Even in the candlelight – with the despair so plain on his stricken face – she had not seen.

She had blundered into it, too.

"Maybe I should tell you what it is, then," she said, and her voice sounded low and strange, like it was coming from someone else. "Because then you might not be concerned so much. With whether I leave."

He made to take her hand again, but she pulled it back.

"I believed what I said about One," she went on. "I still believe it. But what I didn't realize at the time was that we're a lot alike. We both needed a purpose. It was what set us apart from the rest. He knew what our true purpose was, or at least part of it – but he was running from it. So he needed another one. As long as he could be the leader, be the protector, he had a purpose. Without that, he would have nothing. And I know this, because I was just the same.

"I didn't admit it to myself at the time. I told myself that I needed to find out why it had captured me, that I couldn't kill it until I did. And I did want to know that. But it wasn't the real reason." The words were pouring from her now, unstoppable. "When that thing came back to life, even though it had wounded me, even though it had just put me in that place, I was glad. I was relieved. Not right away, but later. I was relieved that it wasn't over. And after that, during all that time, I never once – _once_ – went in for the kill again. Even though I had nearly gotten it the last time. Even though it had wounded me, and I wasn't afraid. Because as long as it was out there, as long as I was hunting it, as long as I was keeping it away from the others – I had a purpose. I was protecting them."

"But you did kill it," said Nine. "You saved us – "

"Yes," she said, "when I was left with no choice. I would have died before I would have let it harm you. But it got Two, when I wasn't there to protect him."

"You couldn't be everywhere – "

"Exactly. And that's why I should never have held back. I should never have played games. I gambled with all of their lives. I gambled with his. And I lost."

"No, you didn't. I'm the one that woke it. I'm the one that woke the machine – "

"But none of that would have ever happened – "

"It needed to happen!" he said, and this time he did take her hand, held it in both of his, held it to him. "Don't you see? That was our true purpose, you said it yourself. We saw it with our own eyes. The world is different now, because of what happened. They're gone – their voices are gone – but they're still here. They're everywhere. Don't you feel them?"

Every second.

"They were trapped, before. Not when they were inside the machine, but before that. That man made us, but he never told us what to do, not really, not even in that message he left. He probably didn't even know himself. It took an accident, it took a mistake. I was the one who made it, but nothing set me apart. It could have been any of you. But you didn't have what you needed. You didn't have the talisman. So there was nothing you could do, nothing any of you could do, but wait. That's all you were doing. You weren't gambling. You were just waiting."

For something. Anything.

"I had no idea you really believed that about One. I thought you were just trying to pick a fight with him, so you would have an excuse to leave. But I don't think he really wanted it out there, either. He didn't want anything to do with it at all. He was running, just like you said. That's why he told you to stay away from it. You were getting too close, just like the twins. Just like Two. He was afraid of what you'd find out."

_Leave it be, I say!_

"I don't know if he thought you would really leave. But those things you said – they must have made him angry. Maybe he just said it without thinking. Maybe he was just willing to take the chance at that point. He wasn't above that kind of thing if he thought it was necessary, or if he thought he was being pushed too hard. You could either stay, and fall in line, or you could leave, and you would be lost forever. I don't know."

His face, when she had said those things...

"But I think I do know why you never told them," he went on. "Why you asked Two to make that promise. If they knew you were alive, if they knew you were out there, then they would be making a choice. They would be choosing to be apart from you. Instead, you wanted to be the one to choose. You wanted to be the one who was apart. And you could still be with them, in your own way, because you were protecting them. I had you all wrong, right from the start. It's not that you _wanted_ to be alone. It's just that you were less alone when you were by yourself."

Time stopped.

She was back there, back at the place with the towers, slicing her blade through its neck. Plunging it into the ground. Lifting her visor. Seeing their faces. Hearing their voices. Two, embracing her.

Charging the winged creature. Snared, harpooned, pinned against the hull. Struggling, as it hauled her in. Eight, cutting the cable. Saving her.

The library. Five smiling, helping her to her feet. Six, paper fluttering, happily greeting the twins.

All of them – all that were left – gathered, standing together, watching the forbidden place burn. All together, all of them, back together after so much time. As if no time had passed at all.

All of them, acting – finally, acting.

And One. The two of them, working together, fighting together, the way they had done before, the way they were always meant to do. The general and the lieutenant. How she would have followed him, if only he had led her where she'd wanted to go.

All of them, doing what they were meant for. What they were made for.

What would it have been like? What would _she_ have been like?

What had kept him? For so long? She'd never asked. She'd never asked why it had taken him so long to wake. Did he know? Should she ask him? What had it been like, sleeping so long?

Was it like waiting?

She closed her eyes. Felt the rise and fall of his gentle breathing. Felt his arms, circling her. How long had he been holding her this way?

"It wasn't like that... at the end," she said softly. "And – " she took a deep breath – "it isn't like that now."

Though she knew it was impossible, she swore she could hear him smile. "I was waiting to hear you say that," he said.

**·**

**·**

It would be morning, soon.

Nearly everything was done. Four neatly-tied bundles of rain clothes sat in a row by the entrance to the globe, fitted with straps to be carried across their backs. Her weapon leaned against the wall next to them.

Nine was busy stocking the quiver – Five's legacy – in which he planned to carry a few threaded needles, and one special needle, a small one that had been rubbed with a magnet and run through a strip of cork. Placed in a pool of water, it would spin until it pointed north and south.

The twins were turning through the crinkled pages of their catalog, taking one last look. When they came to some of their favorites, they would lock eyes, beaming their lights at one another in a shared memory. She had expected them, at first, to be a little melancholy; after all, this had been their home for many years. But they weren't. Maybe after all that time they had spent, storing knowledge and never using it, they were just as happy to let it go. After all, they had been waiting, too.

Seven was taking stock.

Her weapon was coming with her. That wasn't even a question. But what about the rest of it?

She picked up her shield. Slipped it onto her arm. It was a good bit of work, she had to admit. It had taken her a long time to find the right parts, especially the tube that held it on; nice and sturdy, with that clip on it that held everything in place. It had saved her a few times. But there was a different adversary out there now, and this would make it harder to fight, not easier. One more thing she would have to carry, one more thing she would have to juggle while putting on the clothes. She took it off, and placed it aside.

Her helmet. An even better bit of work. She turned it over, looking at the smooth, hollow inside. How long had it taken? Chipping away, little by little, at that structure of bone. Figuring out a way to hold it together. Weighting it properly, so it was balanced, with the feathers attached to the back.

It had seemed so important at the time.

**·**

**·**

Back and back, running swiftly, flying swiftly, to the place where she had rested after her escape. There, a disheveled pile: thread, feathers, and bone. A skull-face sitting on a mound of scrap.

That morning, she had seen it. The creature. The beast. Making its rounds on its ungainly limbs. Fully recovered.

Both of them, fully recovered.

This last creature had not survived. This last creature had died, languishing, in its cage.

She picked up the skull. Turned it in her hands. An idea had been forming. A good one.

Just about the right size, to slip onto her head. For good measure, she took some of the threads, too, still strung with the feathers. She might be able do something with them.

This last creature had lent her its parts, its wings, so that she might do what it could not. Now it was time to return the favor. This last creature had been game.

Now it would become a hunter.

On her next visit to the twins after she had made it, they took one look and ran, scurrying away, frightened of her. She heard the sound of her own laughter ringing in the silent globe; saw their faces, peeking out from their hiding place, when they recognized it. Felt herself smiling as she lifted the visor.

The pair in ecstasies. Swooping toward her, swooping around her, snatching the piece off her head, each trying to hold it first. Lights flashing in insatiable curiosity.

And once again, she didn't blame them.

**·**

**·**

Turning it in her hands again, she smiled. It was good work. It had served her well. It did need new feathers, though; they had come off in the explosion. Maybe she'd find some along the way.

Why not?

Nine had finished with the quiver, and was holding the crossbow now, just looking at it. She had never known the like of him. Never known the like of the past few days. But she did not say this. Instead, she asked, already knowing the answer: "Are you going to take that with you? I can show you how to use it."

"No," he said. "It'll be too much to carry, with the rain clothes. And I really don't think we'll need it."

Her thoughts exactly.

"But can you show me how to use it, anyway? I'd like to try it."

She suspected that he didn't really need her to show him, but did it anyway, standing beside him, instructing him, positioning his hands, as Five had done. Smiled at the delight on his face when he fired it. "Nice work, isn't it?"

"It really is." He turned to her. "There's one more thing we need to decide on."

They had put it off for last. But it was time, now.

The twins brought it over. Unwrapped the cloth that shrouded it. Handed it to Nine, who cradled it, just as had he had done the night of the burning.

Metal. Hemispherical. Exquisitely crafted. Strange symbols etched into its three divisions at the top, smaller ones circling around the base.

Talisman.

Poor Six. He had tried to show them. They had not seen. Except for Two, who had been the only one who had ever bothered to look. What might have happened if he could have spoken? _Really_ spoken? Would they have listened? And as she thought this, it suddenly occurred to her that he had been trying to tell her something, too, up in the clock tower all those years ago.

Talking. Listening.

She would really have to remember that.

**·**

**·**

They departed at dawn.

Only small puddles and traces of dampness now remained in the library, and, past the cascade of books that guarded the threshold, the sky outside was extraordinarily clear. According to the twins, it was normal for the rains to come and go. She wondered how long it would be until the next one. Wouldn't it be funny if, after all they had gone through anticipating and preparing for them, they didn't come again for months?

Walking through the courtyard, they passed by the remains of the plants that had once grown there. Grass. Trees. She knew the words.

"I think you'll like them," she said. "If they do come back."

"I think I will, too."

"I really don't remember much about them. I never got to look at them too closely. I don't think I ever even touched any of them."

At this, the twins waved and gestured, pointing at themselves. They had.

"What did you think?" Nine asked.

Identical faces smiled, nodding excitedly. No surprise there.

They walked on. When they reached the site of the burning, they looked up, at the building, towards the room.

That man had spoken to them, from the message in the box. And as she had watched the projection flicker in the room's muted light, she had felt not one flicker of recognition for him. What was it he had said? That they were all that was left of humanity?

Human. The last human voices.

But they weren't really, were they? They were only impressions. Only instruments.

Human, but not. Human, but more. The next step.

"Are you ready?" Nine's voice. A hand on her arm.

She was.

Five points, like spokes on a wheel. Wordlessly, the four of them picked up the tools they had used before, still where they had left them, and dug into the ashes at the center. When the hole in the ground was deep enough, Nine removed the talisman from where he had stowed it and placed it gently in her hands. "You do it," he said.

She had never held it before. It was heavier than it looked.

She placed it into the hole they had made. Together, with the tools, they mounded the mix of ash and earth back onto it, and tamped it down.

After the ground was closed up, she stood again, briefly, at Two's place, while Nine retrieved her weapon. She took it from him, smiling at him, feeling the beautiful weight, and stood with him a moment, taking his hand, by the spokes of the wheel. Then they all continued on, heading for the border of the ruins.

Walking circles wouldn't bring them back. It didn't even need to. They were already here.

And they were still speaking to her.

* * *

**·**

**·**

* * *

Well, that's a wrap. Liked it? Hated it? Caught any mistakes? Let me know what you thought! :D**  
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